Complementarity among species with different traits is one of the basic processes affecting biodiversity, defined as the number of species in the ecosystem. We present here a soluble model of microbial-based ecosystems in which the species are characterized by binary traits and their pairwise interactions follow a complementarity principle. Manipulation of the species composition, and so the study of its effects on the species diversity, is achieved through the introduction of a bias parameter favoring one of the traits. Using statistical mechanics tools we find explicit expressions for the allowed values of the equilibrium species concentrations in terms of the control parameters of the model.

• Received 5 March 2002

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.148101