Gravity-Driven Eco-Epidemiological Dynamics in Tri-Trophic Food Chains
Abstract
Ecological communities are shaped by the interplay between trophic interactions and infectious disease, yet how spatially mediated interactions influence disease-driven ecosystem dynamics remains poorly understood. Here, we develop a gravity-based eco-epidemiological framework for a tri-trophic food chain in which trophic interaction depends on species abundances and effective interaction distance. The disease-free food chain system supports a stable coexistence equilibrium, providing a baseline for investigating disease-induced ecological transitions. Introducing infection at the intermediate trophic level destabilizes this equilibrium through a Hopf bifurcation, leading to sustained oscillations, whereas infection at the top predator level results in a qualitatively different transition from persistence to extinction. By systematically varying the gravity coupling strength, we show that gravity-mediated trophic interactions regulate the thresholds separating these ecological regimes, while the trophic position of infection determines the nature of the transition. Together, these findings establish a unified framework for understanding how spatially mediated trophic interactions and infectious disease jointly govern ecosystem stability, providing new insights into disease-driven dynamics in ecological communities.
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BibTeX
@misc{patil2026gravitydriven,
title = {{Gravity-Driven Eco-Epidemiological Dynamics in Tri-Trophic Food Chains}},
author = {Yuvrajsingh Pravinsingh Patil and Eckehard Schöll and Fakhteh Ghanbarnejad and Chandrakala Meena},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2607.18434},
eprint = {2607.18434},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.18434},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Gravity-Driven Eco-Epidemiological Dynamics in Tri-Trophic Food Chains
AU - Yuvrajsingh Pravinsingh Patil
AU - Eckehard Schöll
AU - Fakhteh Ghanbarnejad
AU - Chandrakala Meena
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/11
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2607.18434
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.18434
AB - Ecological communities are shaped by the interplay between trophic interactions and infectious disease, yet how spatially mediated interactions influence disease-driven ecosystem dynamics remains poorly understood. Here, we develop a gravity-based eco-epidemiological framework for a tri-trophic food chain in which trophic interaction depends on species abundances and effective interaction distance. The disease-free food chain system supports a stable coexistence equilibrium, providing a baseline for investigating disease-induced ecological transitions. Introducing infection at the intermediate trophic level destabilizes this equilibrium through a Hopf bifurcation, leading to sustained oscillations, whereas infection at the top predator level results in a qualitatively different transition from persistence to extinction. By systematically varying the gravity coupling strength, we show that gravity-mediated trophic interactions regulate the thresholds separating these ecological regimes, while the trophic position of infection determines the nature of the transition. Together, these findings establish a unified framework for understanding how spatially mediated trophic interactions and infectious disease jointly govern ecosystem stability, providing new insights into disease-driven dynamics in ecological communities.
ER -