Population cycles: generalities, exceptions and remaining mysteries

作者：Myers Judith H^*

来源：Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 2018, 285(1875): 20172841.

DOI：10.1098/rspb.2017.2841

• voles
• lemmings
• snowshoe hares
• red grouse
• forest Lepidoptera
• maternal effects

Population cycles are one of nature's great mysteries. For almost a hundred years, innumerable studies have probed the causes of cyclic dynamics in snowshoe hares, voles and lemmings, forest Lepidoptera and grouse. Even though cyclic species have very different life histories, similarities in mechanisms related to their dynamics are apparent. In addition to high reproductive rates and density-related mortality from predators, pathogens or parasitoids, other characteristics include trartsgenerational reduced reproduction and dispersal with. increasing-peak densities, and genetic similarity among populations. Experiments to stop cyclic dynamics and comparisons of cyclic and noncyclic populations provide some understanding but both reproduction and mortality must be considered. What determines variation in amplitude and periodicity of population outbreaks remains a mystery.

• 出版日期2018-3-28