ARE ECOLOGICAL-SYSTEMS CHAOTIC - AN INQUIRY INTO POPULATION-GROWTH MODELS

The discovery of quasiperiodic and chaotic behaviour of deceptively si mple discrete population models is a major unexpected development of t he last few decades. While these complex phenomena are relatively well accepted and understood in physical sciences, the biological signific ance of complex dynamics (chaos) is still not acknowledged fully. Inde ed field data of biological populations has often been thought to some how avoid the predictions of the mathematical models. Ecologically rea listic reformulation of these models has now begun to suggest that cha os is not biologically unrealistic and that ecological processes such as migration of individuals between populations can appear to suppress complex oscillations.