The Beddington–DeAngelis Competitive Response: Intra-Species Interference Enhances Coexistence in Species Competition

Abstract

Species coexistence is a major issue in ecology. We disentangled the role of individual interference when competing in the classical interference competition model. For the first time, we considered simultaneously intra- and inter-species interference by introducing the Beddington–DeAngelis competitive response into the classical competition model. We found a trade-off between intra- and inter-species interference that refines in a sense the well-known balance of intra- and inter-species competition coefficients. As a result, we found that (i) global coexistence is possible for a larger range of values of the inter-/intra-species competition coefficients and contributes to explaining the high prevalence of species coexistence in nature. This feature is exclusively due to intra-species interference. (ii) We found multi-stability scenarios previously described in the literature that can be reinterpreted in terms of individuals interference.

The Effects of Infectious Diseases on the Consequences of Interspecific Competition in Grassland Communities

“…The balance between intraspecific and interspecific competition plays a major role in the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning [57]. However, individual interference when competing also helps to enhance coexistence in species competition [58]. In this study, we demonstrate that pathogen infection can increase the total biomass of the competitive system (as shown by the elevated yellow dashed line in Figures 2 and 3).…”