A unified approach to persistence (Q1119209)

The author defines the concept of permanence for dynamical systems of the type that might arise from models of ecological systems. He quotes a ``geometric'' sufficient condition for permanence in Lotka-Volterra systems and uses modern dynamical system theory to give a new proof. Along the way, he works out some interesting results about the asymptotic behaviour of time averages for solutions of Lotka-Volterra equations. As an example, a two-prey two-predator Lotka-Volterra system is analyzed.