A chaotic attractor in ecology: theory and experimental data

Chaos has now been documented in a laboratory population. In controlled lab oratory experiments, cultures of flour beetles (Tribolium castaneum) underg o bifurcations in their dynamics as demographic parameters are manipulated. These bifurcations, including a specific route to chaos, are predicted by a well-validated deterministic model called the "LPA model". The LPA model isl based on the nonlinear interactions among the life cycle stages of the beetle (larva, pupa and adult). A stochastic version of the model accounts for the deviations of data from the deterministic model and provides the me ans for parameterization and rigorous statistical validation. The chaotic a ttractor of the deterministic LPA model and the stationary distribution of the stochastic LPA model describe the experimental data in phase space with striking accuracy. In addition, model-predicted temporal patterns on the a ttractor are observed in the data. This paper gives a brief account of the interdisciplinary effort that obtained these results. (C) 2000 Elsevier Sci ence Ltd. All rights reserved.