Related papers: Ecological systems in a modeling perspective
The possibility of complicated dynamic behaviour driven by non-linear feedbacks in dynamical systems has revolutionized science in the latter part of the last century. Yet despite examples of complicated frequency dynamics, the possibility…
The dynamics of two competing species in a finite size community is one of the most studied problems in population genetics and community ecology. Stochastic fluctuations lead, inevitably, to the extinction of one of the species, but the…
Computer modelling for evolutionary systems consists in: 1) to store in the memory the individual features of each member of a large population; and 2) to update the whole system repeatedly, as time goes by, according to some prescribed…
It has been shown that some macroeconomic time series, especially those where outliers could be present, can be well modelled using heavy tailed distributions for the noise components. Methods for deciding when and where heavy-tailed models…
Theoretical studies have shown that stochasticity can affect the dynamics of ecosystems in counter-intuitive ways. However, without knowing the equations governing the dynamics of populations or ecosystems, it is difficult to ascertain the…
Increasing pressures on the environment are generating an ever-increasing need to manage animal and plant populations sustainably, and to protect and rebuild endangered populations. Effective management requires reliable mathematical…
When studying the dynamics of trait distribution of populations in a heterogeneous environment, classical models from quantitative genetics choose to look at its system of moments, specifically the first two ones. Additionally, in order to…
We present a simple model for describing the dynamics of the interaction between a homogeneous population or society, and the natural resources and reserves that the society needs for its survival. The model is formulated in terms of…
Natural and social multivariate systems are commonly studied through sets of simultaneous and time-spaced measurements of the observables that drive their dynamics, i.e., through sets of time series. Typically, this is done via hypothesis…
The statistical properties of an ecosystem composed of species interacting via pairwise, random interactions and deterministic, concentration limiting self-interaction are studied analytically with tools of equilibrium statistical mechanics…
A simple weakly frequency dependent model for the dynamics of a population with a finite number of types is proposed, based upon an advantage of being rare. In the infinite population limit, this model gives rise to a non-smooth dynamical…
This paper investigates a nonlinear logistic model for age-structured population dynamics. The model incorporates interdependent fertility and mortality functions within a logistic framework, offering insights into stationary solutions and…
The simplest theories often have much merit and many limitations, and in this vein, the value of Neutral Theory (NT) has been the subject of much debate over the past 15 years. NT was proposed at the turn of the century by Stephen Hubbell…
The striking fractal geometry of strange attractors underscores the generative nature of chaos: like probability distributions, chaotic systems can be repeatedly measured to produce arbitrarily-detailed information about the underlying…
Cyclic dominance of competing species is an intensively used working hypothesis to explain biodiversity in certain living systems, where the evolutionary selection principle would dictate a single victor otherwise. Technically the…
The persistence of biodiversity of species is a challenging proposition in ecological communities in the face of Darwinian selection. The present article investigates beyond the pairwise competitive interactions and provides a novel…
Before we apply nonlinear techniques, for example those inspired by chaos theory, to dynamical phenomena occurring in nature, it is necessary to first ask if the use of such advanced techniques is justified "by the data". While many…
Ecological systems comprise an astonishing diversity of species that cooperate or compete with each other forming complex mutual dependencies. The minimum requirements to maintain a large species diversity on long time scales are in general…
The system decomposition theory has recently been developed for the dynamic analysis of nonlinear compartmental systems. The application of this theory to the ecosystem analysis has also been introduced in a separate article. Based on this…
Variability on external conditions has important consequences for the dynamics and the organization of biological systems. In many cases, the characteristic timescale of environmental changes as well as their correlations play a fundamental…