title: Environmental versus demographic variability in two-species predator-prey models.
abstract: We investigate the competing effects and relative importance of intrinsic demographic and environmental variability on the evolutionary dynamics of a stochastic two-species Lotka-Volterra model by means of Monte Carlo simulations on a two-dimensional lattice. Individuals are assigned inheritable predation efficiencies; quenched randomness in the spatially varying reaction rates serves as environmental noise. We find that environmental variability enhances the population densities of both predators and prey while demographic variability leads to essentially neutral optimization.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061-0435, USA.
authors.forename: Ulrich
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Dobramysl
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061-0435, USA.
authors.forename: Uwe C
authors.initials: UC
authors.lastname: Täuber
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017753:Ecosystem; D008954:Models, Biological; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D011235:Predatory Behavior; D013269:Stochastic Processes