Abstract

We demonstrate that individual behavior can stabilize classical (Nicholson-Bailey) host-parasite population dynamics. Our model assumes that hosts can be divided into at least two phenotypes and that parasites either do not attack one of the phenotypes or attack them facultatively. The former case corresponds to a behavioral refuge (Hassell 1978) and it is known that other kinds of refuges lead to stability of population dynamics. Behavioral refuges can stabilize the population dynamics in the same way that spatial refuges do. When parasites attack hosts facultatively within the year, strange attractors may arise in the year-to-year population dynamics, in response to the nonlinear nature of the facultative response to the distribution of host densities.

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