title: A fundamental principle governing populations.
abstract: Proposed here is that an overriding principle of nature governs all population behavior; that a single tenet drives the many regimes observed in nature-exponential--like growth, saturated growth, population decline, population extinction, and oscillatory behavior. The signature of such an all embracing principle is a differential equation which, in a single statement, embraces the entire panoply of observations. In current orthodox theory, this diverse range of population behaviors is described by many different equations-each with its own specific justification. Here, a single equation governing all the regimes is proposed together with the principle from which it derives. The principle is: The effect on the environment of a population's success is to alter that environment in a way that opposes the success. Experiments are suggested which could validate or refute the theory. Predictions are made about population behaviors.
authors.affiliation: Physics Department, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA. chester@physics.ucla.edu
authors.forename: Marvin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chester
mesh_terms: D005075:Biological Evolution; D017753:Ecosystem; D053476:Extinction, Biological; D016015:Logistic Models; D055641:Mathematical Concepts; D008954:Models, Biological; D011157:Population Dynamics; D011158:Population Growth