When faster rotation is harmful: The competition of alliances with inner blocking mechanism

Abstract

Competitors in an intransitive loop of dominance can form a defensive alliance against an external species. The vitality of this superstructure, however, is jeopardized if we modify the original rock-scissors-paper-like rule and allow that the vicinity of a predator blocks stochastically the invasion success of its neighboring prey towards a third actor. To explore the potential consequences of this multipoint interaction we introduce a minimal model where two three-member alliances are fighting but one of them suffers from this inner blocking mechanism. We demonstrate that this weakness can be compensated by a faster inner rotation which is in agreement with previous findings. This broadly valid principle, however, is not always true here because the increase of rotation speed could be harmful and results in a series of reentrant phase transitions on the parameter plane. This unexpected behavior can be explained by the relation of the blocked triplet and a neutral pair formed by a triplet member with an external species. Our results provide novel aspects to the fundamental laws which determine the evolutionary process in multistrategy ecological systems. Published by the American Physical Society 2024