Figure Legend 1 The most basic Rock-Paper-Scissors Dynamic. (a)
Modelled dynamics of a population of 900 “players” with perfectly
intransitive competitive interactions. Players “tie” with themselves,
winning and losing with equal probability. The model begins with Rock,
Paper and Scissors players at 0.5, 0.33 and 0.17 proportional
frequencies respectively and simulates their competitive interactions
over 40,000 time steps (c and d) Figures adapted from Sinervo and Lively
1996. Similar RPS dynamics play out in a real population between three
color morphs Yellow (Y), Blue (B,) and Orange (O) of U. stansburiana.
Figure Legend 2 Extending the logic of intransitive loops. (a)
A classic RPS scenario, with three competing species each with an
advantage over one other (b) Intransitivity can scale up to larger
ecological communities. In this case seven species interact with every
other species within the outermost loop, creating several inner (or
nested) loops. (c) We suggest that these intransitive relationships
happen simultaneously both intra and interspecifically to influence both
ecological and evolutionary outcomes. Here three phenotypes of three
species interact between and amongst themselves in overlapping
intransitive loops.
Figure Legend 3 Intransitive or RPS loops can occur in a wide
variety of scenarios, across unique temporal scales and across many
taxa. The flexibility of these dynamics leads us to believe that they
are widespread in nature and important stabilizing forces for both
ecological and evolutionary outcomes. Some of these scenarios have been
observed in nature and others represent systems where intransitivity may
play an important role.
Figure Legend 4 The relative benefit of intraspecific
intransitivity on interspecific intransitivity across a gradient of
phenotypic similarity (𝜏) and phenotypic memory (p) values. Scenarios in
which relative benefit is highest (high p and low 𝜏) are the same
conditions that promote stability and robustness in the community. For
model details see Maynard et al. (2019).