Hutchinson revisited: Patterns of density regulation and the coexistence of strong competitors

Tamara Münkemüller (1) , Harald Bugmann , Karin Johst (1)

1 Department of Ecological Modelling

Ecologists have long been searching for mechanisms of species coexistence, particularly since G.E. Hutchinson raised the ‘paradox of the plankton'. A promising approach to solve this paradox and to explain the coexistence of many species with strong niche overlap is to consider over-compensatory density regulation with its ability to generate endogenous population fluctuations.

Mots clés: Over-compensation; Under-compensation; Relative nonlinearity; Lotka-Volterra; Complex dynamics

Tamara Münkemüller, Harald Bugmann, Karin Johst. Hutchinson revisited: Patterns of density regulation and the coexistence of strong competitors. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 2009, 259 (1), pp.109. ⟨10.1016/j.jtbi.2009.03.010⟩. ⟨hal-00554588⟩