Nonlinear competition avoidance favors coexistence in microbial populations
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866908776387313664 |
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| author | Mattei, Mattia Soriano-Paños, David Arenas, Alex |
| author_facet | Mattei, Mattia Soriano-Paños, David Arenas, Alex |
| contents | Bacteria regulate their motility through a variety of mechanisms, including quorum sensing (QS) and other density-dependent responses mediated by diffusible signals. While nonlinear density-dependent motility is well known in active-matter theory to generate nonequilibrium spatial patterns, its consequences for the coexistence of growing, interacting species remain less explored. Here we develop a minimal spatially structured model for two strongly competing species in which local demographic interactions are coupled to an escape response: each species increases its motility nonlinearly (sigmoidal) with the local abundance of its competitor. We show that this sigmoidal motility regulation promotes optimal spatial self-organization and can sustain long term coexistence via segregation, even in parameter regimes that yield competitive exclusion in well-mixed Lotka-Volterra dynamics. On two-dimensional lattices, the interplay between demographic competition and density-dependent motility generates a range of emergent patterns, including regimes in which the weaker competitor counterintuitively has higher total abundance. Overall, our results identify nonlinear, competitor-induced motility as a fundamental mechanism capable of sustaining coexistence in competing microbial populations. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_13947 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Nonlinear competition avoidance favors coexistence in microbial populations Mattei, Mattia Soriano-Paños, David Arenas, Alex Populations and Evolution Biological Physics Bacteria regulate their motility through a variety of mechanisms, including quorum sensing (QS) and other density-dependent responses mediated by diffusible signals. While nonlinear density-dependent motility is well known in active-matter theory to generate nonequilibrium spatial patterns, its consequences for the coexistence of growing, interacting species remain less explored. Here we develop a minimal spatially structured model for two strongly competing species in which local demographic interactions are coupled to an escape response: each species increases its motility nonlinearly (sigmoidal) with the local abundance of its competitor. We show that this sigmoidal motility regulation promotes optimal spatial self-organization and can sustain long term coexistence via segregation, even in parameter regimes that yield competitive exclusion in well-mixed Lotka-Volterra dynamics. On two-dimensional lattices, the interplay between demographic competition and density-dependent motility generates a range of emergent patterns, including regimes in which the weaker competitor counterintuitively has higher total abundance. Overall, our results identify nonlinear, competitor-induced motility as a fundamental mechanism capable of sustaining coexistence in competing microbial populations. |
| title | Nonlinear competition avoidance favors coexistence in microbial populations |
| topic | Populations and Evolution Biological Physics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.13947 |