  We investigate a tritrophic system in which organisms' energy depletion,
resulting from failed selection attempts, leads to a partial loss of capacity
to win the cyclic spatial game. The energy required to maintain optimal
organism fitness may be impacted by changes in environmental conditions,
increasing the death risk due to accelerated deterioration of health. We
simulate the evolutionary behavioural strategy performed by individuals of one
species, which consists in balancing efforts dedicated to reproduction and
mobility to minimise the chances of death by lack of energy. We show that the
unevenness introduced by the trade-off strategy unbalances the
rock-paper-scissors model, with the predominant species profiting from enemies'
lower birth rate of enemies. Quantifying the spatial patterns, we demonstrate
that the characteristic length scale of single-species domains decreases as
energy loss accelerates due to environmental changes. The erosion in the
spatial patterns provoked by the reproduction-mobility trade-off benefits
biodiversity, with coexistence probability rising for faster energy depletion
and higher trade-off factors. The findings have implications for ecologists
seeking to understand the impact of survival behaviour on biodiversity
promotion.
