Consumption driven population dynamics (CDPD): Further explorations

The consumption driven population dynamics (CDPD) model, described and demonstrated in my previous paper (Bentley, 2006), suggests a fundamental structure connecting all life produced by simple, independent mechanisms for mass gain and loss that are determined by those constraints of natural law governing transfers of mass and energy. This basic system may be modified to a greater or lesser degree by additional mechanisms that account for living and nonliving elements of the environment, much of which is stochastic. Collectively, this accounts for the broad range of population dynamics we observe within the web of linkages connecting all living things. mplies that mortality has a much greater influence on the dynamic than previously considered. While this is certainly no surprise to those doing field research, mortality has not been properly addressed in prior population models. A population subject to hard times, very low consumption or extreme environmental conditions, can suffer losses at rates that are orders of magnitude greater than rates of gain under the most favorable conditions. CDPD exhibits this dynamic under harsh conditions. DPD response’, a biologically derived model of consumption functional response that may be used in conjunction with the CDPD model, introduced but never exercised in the previous paper, is demonstrated to show the effects of past consumption. The ‘CDPD response’ is explored in the effort to more completely understand how past consumption may help explain certain observations. scenarios driven by consumption appear to explain single peak events and seasonal oscillations, environmental effects aside from consumption produce stable aperiodic oscillations with characteristics highly similar to the great majority of extended time series data contained in the NERC database.