12. Producer-Consumer Dynamics

Read the opening pages · printed page 181

Grass, Sheep, and Wolves (gsw.c)

The Lotka-Volterra equations describe predators and prey as smooth population totals. This is the same story told one individual at a time: grass grows where there is grass nearby, sheep wander, eat, and breed when fed, wolves do the same to sheep, and everything starves without food. Waves of sheep eat holes in the grass, wolves follow the sheep, and the populations chase each other in a cycle nobody wrote down. Full screen →

Sections

1. Producer-Consumer Interactions
2. Predator-Prey Systems
3. Generalized Lotka-Volterra Systems
4. Individual-Based Ecology
5. Unifying Themes
6. Further Exploration
7. Further Reading

Figures

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