Skip to main content
Advertisement

< Back to Article

Strategy Diversity Stabilizes Mutualism through Investment Cycles, Phase Polymorphism, and Spatial Bubbles

Figure 7

Schematic representation of mutualistic interactions in (A) monomorphic and (C) polymorphic mutualist communities.

Spheres depict strategies, and the links between spheres represent the interactions between interacting strategies from the two mutualist guilds. (B) According to its own and its partner's strategy, an individual receives a payoff (schematically illustrated by two triangles that become darker and wider as the received payoff increases). The comparison of payoffs between partners shows whether their interaction is more mutualistic (middle) or more exploitative (bottom and top). (D) Average distribution of interaction types in our model, showing that small relative differences between the payoffs of interacting individuals are more common or longer-lasting than extreme exploitations. (E) Average distribution of the payoff sums and relative payoff differences for interacting individuals of Mutualist A and Mutualist B, demonstrating that, on average, payoffs in asymmetric, or exploitative, interactions are lower than in symmetric, or more mutualistic, interactions. The distributions in D and E are based on sampling all individuals in every generation for generations and for five replicate model runs. The relative difference between the payoffs and of individuals and is given by , and is given by . Parameters: , , , , , , and .

Figure 7

doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002660.g007