Abstract
It is known that a species-saturated ecological community driven by competitive Lotka-Volterra equations, following a path of competitive exclusion, lingers in a long-term state with species congregated in niche space into well-separated clusters. Characterizing the topology of the niche structure of this state as a hierarchical one, we put forward a generalization of the Lotka-Volterra multi-resource competition model, which recognizes this topology at the basis of its own network structure of interrelated differential equations. This kind of generalization substantially reduces the competitive constraints on species coexistence, offering promising potential for a conceptual resolution of the plankton paradox.
Publisher
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory