Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2015/ii/paper-3/5e/solution

There are seeds and their germinating proportion is , giving the survival-augmented Ricker map with zero survival. A positive equilibrium point satisfies , so
It exists when and is strictly linearly stable when . Thus the usual strict linear-stability interval is .
With winter survival, surviving adults and new plants add:
Writing , the linearization of a dynamical system has multiplier . Hence the strict linear-stability interval becomes
Its lower endpoint is less than . Its upper endpoint exceeds : for , is decreasing in and equals at .
The nonlinear stability at the Ricker flip threshold needs a separate check. The upper endpoints have multiplier , so the strict linear test alone does not decide stability there. They are in fact locally asymptotically stable, with algebraic rather than geometric convergence. To see this, put at . The local map is
and its second iterate is . The cubic coefficient in parentheses is positive for every . Thus, if “stable” includes nonlinear endpoint stability, the upper inequalities can be replaced by ; the lower endpoints have no positive equilibrium.

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