Hetero-chaos in a common ecological modality

Abstract Based on an example of a four dimensional ecological community composed of three ant species and a group of phorid flies, a simplified dynamic model is proposed and analyzed qualitatively. The model contains an intransitive triplet of ant species coupled with a predator/prey pair, where the prey is one of the ants in the intransitive competition, thus coupling a 3D oscillator with a 2D oscillator. Relaxing basic symmetries, a chaotic attractor emerges in which two distinct unstable modalities are recognizable, identifiable with the two biological processes involved. The unstable manifolds of each of the instabilities are of distinct dimensionalities, a characteristic known as hetero-chaos. It is suggested that the qualitative arrangement may be common as a modality within large ecological systems, thus proposing hetero-chaos as possibly common in ecosystems that have chaotic behavior.