From asynchronous to synchronous chimeras in ecological multiplex network

We study the emergence of chimera states in coupled ecological systems consisting of prey-predator patches organized in a framework of multiplex network with regular coupling topology. The nodes in each layer of the multiplex network are modeled by a three-component Hastings-Powell model exhibiting chaotic dynamics. The existence of different dynamical states in each layer namely, incoherent, chimera and coherent states is characterized through the strength of incoherence measurement. Our investigation reveals that due to multiplexing the chimera state in one layer completely overlaps with the chimera state in another layer for a suitable range of the intra-layer coupling strengths. The transition scenario from asynchronous to synchronous chimera states is realized through the computation of the inter-layer synchronization error. Besides nonlocal interaction, a similar phenomenon is observed in the nearest-neighbor as well as in all-to-all interaction topology. Furthermore, the presence of distinct collective dynamical states is portrayed in an appropriate range of the various parameter spaces.