An answer to the “diversity-stability debate” in community ecology
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Asia/Tokyo
2F Large meeting room, Main Cafeteria (RIKEN Wako)
2F Large meeting room, Main Cafeteria
RIKEN Wako
Description
Dates: 3 p.m., January 31st (Fri.) 2014, ２０１４年１月３１日（金）午後３時より
Place: 2F Large meeting room, Main Cafeteria (統合支援棟 ２階大会議室）
Lecturer: Prof. Kei Tokita (Nagoya University)
名古屋大学 時田恵一郎教授
Title: An answer to the “diversity-stability debate” in community ecology
Abstract: If we investigate the number and populations of species in an ecosystem, we can observe universal characteristic patterns, the species abundance patterns, such as species abundance distributions (SAD), species-area relationships, etc. How to clarify the mechanisms underlying those patterns has been one of the "unanswered questions in ecology in the last century" although the knowledge obtained from it would affect vast areas of ecology including conservation ecology. Various "statistical descriptors" such as the exponential distribution, the log-normal distribution, the power-law, etc., have been applied to ecosystem communities, but the mechanisms to generate those patterns based on the realistic population dynamics have not been fully clarified. The neutral theory is a candidate of the mechanism for an adherent community like tropical rain forests and coral reefs but it has left the more complex systems a mystery. Such systems occur on multiple trophic levels and include various types of interspecies interactions, such as prey-predator relationships, mutualism, competition, etc., and their adaptation and evolution. In my talk, starting from the so-called "diversity-stability" debate on the classical and controversial study on a linear system with random interactions, I sketch a recent statistical mechanical approach to the effects of the parameters of the interaction matrix (variance, connectivity, intraspecific competition and the level of symmetry), the higher order interactions and the effects of variability of resources on the stability species' coexistence and SAD of a nonlinear multispecies system with random interactions.
Prior to the Colloquium, three short talks by iTHES member will be presented:
13:30~13:50
"Dynamics of mobile coupled
cellular oscillators"
Dr. K. Uriu (ithes-bio)
13:50~14:10
"Atomistic modelling of planets"
Dr. T. Iitaka (ithes-cond)
14:10~14:30
"Taming the randomness in QCD"
Dr. T. Kanazawa (ithes-phys)
