Group defense promotes coexistence in interference competition: The Holling type IV competitive response

Abstract

We investigate the role of group defense in the context of species interference competition by incorporating a Holling type IV like interaction term into the classical model. We have found a trade-off between species competitive strength and defense efficiency that reduces inter-species competition pressure. Thus, group defense promotes both each species probability of survival and species coexistence in two different ways: (i) Enlarging the range of parameter values yielding species survival/coexistence and (ii) Allowing for multi-stability scenarios, including global coexistence through several simultaneous coexistence asymptotically stable states that, to our knowledge, have not been previously reported in pure interference competition models.