Multiple Basins of Attraction

Abstract

Historically, simple models may have helped to lull some ecologists into thinking either that (i) models are useless because they do not reflect the natural world, or (ii) the natural world is highly predictable.1 Here we investigate how simple models can create unpredictable outcomes, in models of Lotka–Volterra competition, resource competition, and intraguild predation. In all cases, we get totally different outcomes, or alternative stable states, depending on different, stochastic, initial conditions.