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Article: Experimental prevention of a population cycle in Red Grouse.
- Article from:
- Ecology
- Article date:
- July 1, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Ecological Society of America. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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INTRODUCTION
The relative importance of density-dependent and density-independent mechanisms in determining population densities and changes is a basic issue in ecology. Nicholson (1954) proposed that density-dependent factors regulate a population around a stable equilibrium, but Andrewartha and Birch (1954) argued that fluctuations are caused largely by density-independent factors. A third view (May 1974, 1976) is that delayed density-dependent factors can produce complex dynamics including damped oscillations, limit cycles, and chaos. The idea that unstable dynamics are unusual in nature (Hassel et al. 1976, Berryman and Millstein 1989, Hairston 1989) was ...