population dynamics

Diminished growth and vitality in juvenile Hydractinia echinata under anticipated future temperature and variable nutrient conditions

In a warming climate, rising seawater temperatures and declining primary and secondary production will drastically affect growth and fitness of marine invertebrates in the northern Atlantic Ocean. To study the ecological performance of juvenile …

Optimal Planting Distance in a Simple Model of Habitat Restoration With an Allee Effect

Ecological restoration is emerging as an important strategy to improve the recovery of degraded lands and to combat habitat and biodiversity loss worldwide. One central unresolved question revolves around the optimal spatial design for outplanted …

Optimal stock–enhancement of a spatially distributed renewable resource

We study the economic management of a renewable resource, the stock of which is spatially distributed and moves over a discrete or continuous spatial domain. In contrast to standard harvesting models where the agent can control the take-out from the …

Calculation of epidemic arrival time distributions using branching processes

The rise of the World Airline Network over the past century has led to sharp changes in our notions of “distance” and “closeness”—in terms of both trade and travel, but also (less desirably) with respect to the spread of disease. When novel pathogens …

Biodiversity

Theoretical Ecology, Biodiversity and trait-based modelling

Bioinvasion

Bioinvasion and global transportation networks

Marine Microbiome

Complex systems theory of dissolved organic matter

Movement Ecology

Linking magnetic and other orientation cues to global migration patterns

Long-term cyclic persistence in an experimental predator–prey system

Predator–prey cycles rank among the most fundamental concepts in ecology, are predicted by the simplest ecological models and enable, theoretically, the indefinite persistence of predator and prey. However, it remains an open question for how long cyclic dynamics can be self-sustained in real communities. Field observations have been restricted to a few cycle periods and experimental studies indicate that oscillations may be short-lived without external stabilizing factors. Here we performed microcosm experiments with a planktonic predator–prey system and repeatedly observed oscillatory time series of unprecedented length that persisted for up to around 50 cycles or approximately 300 predator generations.

New Publication in Nature: Long-term cyclic persistence in an experimental predator-prey system.

Realization of the longest known predator-prey time series