Joint OGS-QLS Seminar by Onofrio Mazzarisi "Diversity begets stability: sublinear growth and competitive coexistence across ecosystems" - Wednesday, 22 November 10h30

[Quantitative Life Sciences Section]

Dear All,

On Wednesday, 22 November, 2023 at 10:30 CET, Onofrio Mazzarisi (OGS, 
Trieste) will give a seminar titled:

*Diversity begets stability: sublinear growth and competitive 
coexistence across ecosystems*

Abstract:

The dramatic loss of species diversity brings urgency to understanding 
how diverse ecosystems are naturally stabilized. Whereas conventional 
wisdom and empirical observation suggest that stability increases with 
diversity, ecological theory has long made the opposite prediction, 
leading to the longstanding “diversity-stability debate”.
We show this puzzle is resolved through a model where growth scales as a 
sublinear power law with biomass (exponent < 1), exhibiting a form of 
population self-regulation analogous to models of individual ontogeny. 
We show that competitive interactions in a community with sublinear 
growth do not lead to exclusion, but instead promote stability at higher 
diversity.
Our model realigns theory with classic observations and predicts 
large-scale macroecological patterns. However, it makes an unsettling 
prediction: biodiversity loss may accelerate the destabilization of 
ecosystems.

_The seminar will take place in the *L. Stasi seminar room*, Leonardo 
building, First floor
_
__
You are all most welcome to attend!

Best regards,
Erica

Erica Sarnataro
Group Secretary
Quantitative Life Sciences
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP)
Trieste,  Italy
Tel. +39-040-2240623
www.ictp.it/research/qls.aspx
e-mail:qls at ictp.it