Fig. 3: Richness can change non-monotonically with increasing death rate.

a Trajectories of rescaled consumption rates as the death rate of the targeted species (blue) is increased. Arrow denotes the direction of increasing death rate. Circles mark the six death rates shown in (b). With increasing death rate, the targeted species eventually became more specialized, while the non-targeted species became more of a generalist and closer to the supplied resource point at the center of the simplex. b Population dynamics at the six death rates marked in (a). (\({d}_{1}=0\)) In the absence of antibiotic targeting, only the blue species persisted. (\({d}_{1}=0.3\)) For low death rates of the blue species, the orange species was able to coexist. (\({d}_{1}=0.5\)) There was a range of death rates that allowed for coexistence of all three species. (\({d}_{1}=1.5\)) As the death rate was increased further, the orange species went extinct. (\({d}_{1}=8\)) As the death rate increased even further, coexistence of all three species was again realized. (\({d}_{1}=10\)) Finally, at sufficiently high death rate the blue species went extinct. c Number of richness changes until the extinction of the targeted species as its consumption niche was varied across the simplex, while the consumption niches of the non-targeted species were fixed as in (a).