The competition model with Holling type II competitive response to interfering time.

Abstract

In Nature, species coexistence is much more frequent than what the classical competition model predicts, so that scientists look for mechanisms that explain such a coexistence. We revisit the classical competition model assuming that individuals invest time in competing individuals of the other species. This assumption extends the classical competition model (that becomes a particular case of the model presented) under the form of a Holling type II term, that we call competitive response to interfering time. The resulting model expands the outcomes allowed by the classical model by (i) enlarging the range of parameter values that allow coexistence scenarios and (ii) displaying dynamical scenarios not allowed by the classical model: namely, bi-stable conditional coexistence in favour of i (either species coexist or species i wins) or tri-stable conditional coexistence (either species coexist or any of them goes extinct), being exclusion in both cases due to priority effects.