Effects of intraguild prey dispersal driven by intraguild predator-avoidance on species coexistence

Predators can greatly influence the coexistence of competing prey species via direct consumptive effects as well as non-consumptive effects on prey behavior. This makes predicting the consequences of predator introduction on biodiversity and ecological structure very challenging. In this paper, inspired by recent experimental observations (Pringle et al., Nature, 570 (2019) 58-64), we develop a novel mathematical model that couples a competition model with an intraguild predation model via dispersal of intraguild prey driven by intraguild predator-avoidance. We show that a large dispersal rate would lead to the collapse of species coexistence, which is consistent with the reported experimental results. In addition, we show that three modes of species coexistence are possible when the intraguild prey dispersal rate is not too large. Moreover, for a certain range of dispersal rates, a stable interior equilibrium can coexist with a stable positive limit cycle. (c) 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Predators play a crucial role in the coexistence of competing prey species, with a large dispersal rate leading to the collapse of species coexistence. However, when the dispersal rate is smaller, three modes of species coexistence are possible.