Multistability of extinction states in the toy model for three species

Abstract

Multistability is common feature resulting in nonlinear dynamical systems, and its characteristic can be generally depicted by investigating basin structures of initial conditions for give parameter settings. In this paper, we explore the formation of extinction states according to the change of strength of competition levels in the toy model for three species. Through the linear stability analysis, we find that the extinction state can be stable which is persistent. For specific conditions between intensities of two different competitions, we also found that the extinction state can be either bistable or tristable. In each case, the final state of the system can be characterized sensitively depending on initial conditions. To validate our results, we investigate basin structures of parameters for interspecific competition associated to a strength of intraspecific competition. In addition, we found that coexistence becomes robust as intraspecific competition is intensified relatively to the interspecific competition level. We hope our results can be a chance to suggest the emergence of the multistability according to complex competition structures on systems of many populations.