Spatio-temporal patterns in population dynamics

The transient dynamics of interacting biological species extracted from two ecosystems is investigated. We model the environment interaction by a multiplicative noise and the temperature oscillations by a periodic forcing. We find noise-induced effects such as enhanced temporal oscillations, spatial patterns and noise delayed extinction for the model of two competing species. We extend our analysis to an ecosystem of three interacting species, namely one predator and two preys. We find spatial patterns induced by the noise. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.