Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Odds & Ends #3

This is a graph I made using octave to solve a pair of nonlinear differential equations, namely the Lotka-Volterra predator-prey equations. The prey is the red curve, and the green curve is the predator. You can see the prey population increasing, until the predator population also increases, overhunting the prey and causing a collapse in both populations, until the prey species recovers and the cycle repeats. I chose the parameters (ie reproduction and mortality rates) used to create this somewhat arbitrarily, but this agrees with the ones I've seen for real-world predator-prey relationships.

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