{rfName}
Ro

Indexed in

License and Use

Icono OpenAccess

Altmetrics

Analysis of institutional authors

Capitan, Jose AAuthor

Share

April 1, 2026
Publications
>
Article

Robust coexistence in competitive ecological communities

Publicated to: Nature Communications. 17 (1): 2637- - 2026-02-11 17(1), DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-69151-3

Authors:

Lechon-Alonso, Pablo; Kundu, Srilena; Lemos-Costa, Paula; Capitan, Jose A; Allesina, Stefano
[+]

Affiliations

Alfred Wegener Inst, Helmholtz Ctr Polar & Marine Res, Bremerhaven, Germany - Author
Helmholtz Inst Funct Marine Biodivers Univ Oldenbu, Oldenburg, Germany - Author
Northwestern Univ, Northwestern Inst Complex Syst, Evanston, IL 60208 USA - Author
Univ Chicago, Dept Ecol & Evolut, Chicago, IL 60637 USA - Author
Univ Politecn Madrid, Dept Appl Math, Complex Syst Grp, Madrid, Spain - Author
Univ Sao Paulo, Dept Ecol, Inst Biociencias, Sao Paulo, Brazil - Author
See more

Abstract

Darwin already recognized that competition is fiercest among conspecifics, a principle that later made intraspecific competition central to ecological theory through concepts such as niche differentiation and limiting similarity. Beyond shaping coexistence, strong intraspecific competition can also stabilize community dynamics by ensuring that populations return to equilibrium after disturbance. Here we investigate a more fundamental question: how intraspecific competition influences the very existence of a steady state (feasibility) in large random ecological communities dominated by competition. We show that, in analogy with classical results on stability, there is a critical level of intraspecific competition above which a feasible steady state is guaranteed to exist. We derive a general expression for the probability of feasibility and prove that, asymptotically (as species number grows), the transition to stability occurs before the transition to feasibility with probability one. Thus, in large competitive communities, any feasible equilibrium is automatically stable. This ordering persists even when many species in the initial pool cannot coexist and extinctions occur: the dynamics prune the community, shifting feasibility and stability thresholds but never reversing their order. These results imply that large competitive communities generically converge to a globally stable equilibrium, making sustained oscillations or chaos unlikely-consistent with experimental observations.
[+]

Keywords

ChaosDynamicsFeasibilityStability

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal Nature Communications due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2026, it was in position 10/136, thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Multidisciplinary Sciences. Notably, the journal is positioned above the 90th percentile.

[+]

Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2026-04-09:

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 1.

It is essential to present evidence supporting full alignment with institutional principles and guidelines on Open Science and the Conservation and Dissemination of Intellectual Heritage. A clear example of this is:

  • The work has been submitted to a journal whose editorial policy allows open Open Access publication.
[+]

Leadership analysis of institutional authors

This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: Brazil; Germany; United States of America.

[+]

Awards linked to the item

A. Skwara, Z.R. Miller, and C. Servan for discussion. This research was supported in part by grants from the NSF (DMS-2235451) and Simons Foundation (MPS-NITMB-00005320) to the NSF-Simons National Institute for Theory and Mathematics in Biology (NITMB). JAC acknowledges financial support from grant PRIORITY (PID2021-127202NB-C22), funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and "ERDF. A way of making Europe". We acknowledge the University of Chicago's Research Computing Center for their support of this work.
[+]