title: Mutualism promotes diversity and stability in a simple artificial ecosystem.
abstract: This work investigates the effect of ecological interactions between organisms on the evolutionary dynamics of a community. A spatially explicit, individual-based model is presented, in which organisms compete for space and resources. We investigated how introducing the potential for mutualistic relationships (where the presence of one type of organism stimulates the growth of another type, and vice versa) affected the evolutionary dynamics of the system. Without this potential, one or a small number of individual types of organisms dominated the simulated community from the onset. When mutualistic relationships were allowed, many persisting types arose, with new types appearing continually. Furthermore, we investigated how the stability of the community differed when mutualistic relationships were allowed and disallowed. Our results suggest that the existence of mutualistic relationships improved community stability.
authors.affiliation: SIMBIOS, University of Abertay Dundee, Bell Street, Dundee DD1 1HG, United Kingdom. serlp@abertay.ac.uk
authors.forename: Elizaveta
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pachepsky
authors.forename: Tim
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jones
mesh_terms: D005075:Biological Evolution; D017753:Ecosystem; D014644:Genetic Variation / Q000235:genetics; D008954:Models, Biological; D009154:Mutation; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity