Resonance effects and outbreaks in ecological time series

Abstract

Organismal response to environmental variability is an important aspect of ecological processes. We propose new mechanisms whereby environmental variability can cause cyclic population outbreaks due to the nonlinearity of the organismal response. We consider stage‐structured populations that respond to variable environments with variable diapause or dormancy, and in which cyclic changes of the environment induce a resonance‐like boost in the population size. If there is also a stochastic component of variation in the environment, the population outbreaks are magnified by the phenomenon of “stochastic resonance”. The results show that large population fluctuations may not be due to extrinsic or intrinsic factors alone, but to a nonlinear interaction between the external environment and internal population processes. Indeed, in the presence of such nonlinearities even very small environmental fluctuations can cause massive fluctuations in population size. Our theoretical results may help to explain periodic population cycles and outbreak dynamics found in many infectious diseases and pest species. We also discuss the evolution of the response parameters that regulate diapause or dormancy and promote the outbreak dynamics in variable environments.