A unifying framework for chaos and stochastic stability in discrete population models (Q1365075)

The authors study deterministic and stochastic discrete time population models. They show that for a class of deterministic population models chaos is inevitable if (1) the population has a potential to increase exponentially for sufficiently small densities and the corresponding ``natural'' growth rate is high enough; (2) there is a density-dependent feedback which reduces the actual rate of increase as the population grows and this feedback is also strong enough. The authors then consider population models in a stochastic environment and discuss the conditions when the probability distribution of the population density reaches an invariant form.