Emergence of oscillatory coexistence with exponentially decayed waiting times in a coupled cyclic competition system

Abstract

Interpatch migration between two environments is generally considered as a spatial concept and can affect species biodiversity in each patch by inducing flux of population such as inflow and outflow quantities of species. In this paper, we explore the effect of interpatch migration, which can be generally considered as a spatial concept and may affect species biodiversity between two different patches in the perspective of the macroscopic level by exploiting the coupling of two systems, where each patch is occupied by cyclically competing three species who can stably coexist by exhibiting periodic orbits. For two simple scenarios of interpatch migration either single or all species migration, we found that two systems with independently stable coexisting species in each patch are eventually synchronized, and oscillatory behaviors of species densities in two patches become identical, i.e., the synchronized coexistence emerges. In addition, we find that, whether single or all species interpatch migration occurs, the waiting time for the synchronization is exponentially decreasing as the coupling strength is intensified. Our findings suggest that the synchronized behavior of species as a result of migration between different patches can be easily predicted by the coupling of systems and additional information such as waiting times and sensitivity of initial densities.