Weak Allee effects and species coexistence

In this article, we study the population dynamics of a two-species discrete-time competition model where each species suffers from either predator saturation induced Allee effects and/or mate limitation induced Allee effects. We focus on the following two possible outcomes of the competition: 1. one species goes to extinction; 2. the system is permanent. Our results indicate that, even if one species’ intra-specific competition is less than its inter-specific competition, weak Allee effects induced by predation saturation can promote coexistence of the two competing species. This is supported by the outcome of two-species competition models without Allee effects. Also, we discuss our results and future work on multiple attractors in competition models with Allee effects.