Coexistence in a Two-Dimensional Lotka-Volterra Model

J Theodore Cox (Syracuse University)
Mathieu Merle (Université Paris VII (Diderot))
Edwin A Perkins (The University of British Columbia)

Abstract


We study the stochastic spatial model for competing species introduced by Neuhauser and Pacala in two spatial dimensions. In particular we confirm a conjecture of theirs by showing that there is coexistence of types when the competition parameters between types are equal and less than, and close to, the within types parameter. In fact coexistence is established on a thorn-shaped region in parameter space including the above piece of the diagonal. The result is delicate since coex- istence fails for the two-dimensional voter model which corresponds to the tip of the thorn. The proof uses a convergence theorem showing that a rescaled process converges to super-Brownian motion even when the parameters converge to those of the voter model at a very slow rate.

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Pages: 1190-1266

Publication Date: August 9, 2010

DOI: 10.1214/EJP.v15-795

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