Abstract:
We study a metacommunity model of consumer-resource populations coupled via dispersal under an
environment-dependent framework, and we explore the occurrence of multistability and critical transition. By
emphasizing two magnitudes acting on a dynamic environment at temporal and spatial scales, the coupled system
with simple diffusive coupling and the nonlinear environmental coupling enables various interesting complex
dynamics such as bistability, multistability, and critical transitions. Using the basin stability measure, we find the
probability of attaining each alternative state in a multistable region. In addition, critical transitions (one from
a high to a low species density and the other from a low to a high species density) are identified at different
magnitudes in the presence of stochastic fluctuations. We also explore the robustness of critical slowing-down
indicators, e.g., lag-1 autocorrelation and variance, to forewarn the critical transition in the metacommunity
model. Further, a network structure also identifies synchronization and multiclustering for a different choice of
initial conditions. In contrast with the earlier studies on dynamic environmental coupling, our results based on
the defined magnitudes provide important insights into environmental heterogeneity, which determines the set of
environmental conditions to predict metacommunity stability and persistence
