Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-topics-in-applied-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2007/a/1/iv/solution

At low density the per-generation growth factor is approximately . The power controls how sharply crowding reduces recruitment or survival when resources become limiting; at high density . Larger therefore means a stronger overcompensation in a population model.
The flip threshold says that sufficiently strong density feedback can destabilize a constant positive biological population and create alternating generations, under the usual nondegeneracy conditions. A local loss of fixed-point stability alone does not establish chaos, nor does it prove every ecological system with stronger crowding must follow the same route.

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