Fig. 6
From: What can ecosystems learn? Expanding evolutionary ecology with learning theory
Response to environmental forcing before and after evolution in varying environmental conditions. a-b Population dynamics under slowly-changing environmental forcing, changing first from E 1 to E 2 (middle row, left-to-right), and then back again from E 2 to E 1 (bottom row, right-to-left). a Before evolution of interactions, changes in species densities are proportional to forcing. b After evolution (Experiment 2), species densities show an abrupt switch between attractors with hysteresis. c Vector field for the population dynamics. The unstable equilibrium is revealed at the boundary of the shaded region indicating where species densities move away from E 1. Points near the critical transition (solid circle) have slower population dynamics than points far from critical transition (dashed circle). d Evolution of two-attractor system. Initially, change in species densities is proportional to environmental forcing. Around generation 470 non-linear but non-catastrophic transitions are observable. Finally, two stable attractors with a catastrophic transition and hysteresis