Synergy, Constraints, Convexity

Abstract

This book deals with many of the differences between the multidimensional dynamics of structured populations and those of scalar growth models. It is important to identify those features of the structured case which differ markedly from the scalar case. The first two sections below show that the differences can be quite considerable. Section 1 discusses the effect of autocorrelation. Section 2 presents an example where serially uncorrelated random variation raises the growth rate of a population above its possible deterministic growth rate. The third section summarizes a potentially useful result of Cohen concerning the parametric sensitivity of stochastic rates. The last section shows how strong constraints on population vital rates can lead to “scalar” behavior.