Allee effect – a matter of friendship

Suppose you don’t have enough friends around you to do well. Then a foe shows up and takes the place of a friend. What would happen? In our paper “Competition, facilitation and the Allee effect”,  we study the dynamics of two populations with Allee effect (you need a number of friends to do well). The two populations compete (are foes) but can functionally replace members of the other population for some aspects (take the place of a friend). For example, some plants experience an Allee effect because they cannot attract enough pollinators when rare. But a competing plant species can help. So what does happen? Can you imagine that you might be completely dependent on your foe – and they on you?

Frihjof Luscher (on picture)

Lutscher’s and Iljon’s paper is now on Early View in Oikos, read more here