Past exam of the topics in applied mathematics course of the University of Oxford / 2009 / A / 1 / b

A large initial biological population maps to a very small positive biological population because $u{e}^{-u}\to 0$ at large $u$: the initial slump is followed by recovery. Cobwebbing alternates a vertical step from $(u_n,u_n)$ to $(u_n,H(u_n))$ with a horizontal step to the diagonal at $(u_{n+1},u_{n+1})$. The figure uses the explicit illustrative choice $u_1=5$.

For $r=2$, every positive orbit subsequently lies below the maximum $H(1)=2/e<1$. On $[0,2/e]$ the map is increasing, with the unique positive fixed point $\log 2$. Below that point $H(u)>u$ and $H(u)<\log 2$; above it $H(u)<u$ and $H(u)>\log 2$. Therefore the trapped iterates approach the fixed point monotonically from whichever side they enter. In particularThe extinction initial value remains zero, but exact extinction is never reached from a positive finite biological population in this deterministic model.

Apply the same vertical-then-horizontal cobweb construction to $H(u)=9u{e}^{-u}$. Since no numerical value of the large initial biological population is prescribed, an exact five-generation list is $u_1$, $H(u_1)$, $H^2(u_1)$, $H^3(u_1)$, $H^4(u_1)$. For the plotted example $u_1=5$, these values areThe initial slump is followed by rapid growth and an alternating overshoot about $\log 9\simeq 2.197225$, which is now unstable because its periodic-orbit multiplier $1-\log 9<-1$. A still larger initial biological population can remain extremely small for more than these four updates; the example illustrates the requested construction without imposing an unstated universal numerical starting value.