Noise-induced effects in population dynamics

2002

We investigate the role of noise in the nonlinear relaxation of two ecosystems described by generalized Lotka-Volterra equations in the presence of multiplicative noise. Specifically we study two cases: (i) an ecosystem with two interacting species in the presence of periodic driving; (ii) an ecosystem with a great number of interacting species with random interaction matrix. We analyse the interplay between noise and periodic modulation for case (i) and the role of the noise in the transient dynamics of the ecosystem in the presence of an absorbing barrier in case (ii). We find that the presence of noise is responsible for the generation of temporal oscillations and for the appearance of s…