title: Understanding the alternate bearing phenomenon: Resource budget model.
abstract: We consider here the resource budget model of plant energy resources, which characterizes the ecological alternate bearing phenomenon in fruit crops, in which high and low yields occur in alternate years. The resource budget model is a tent-type map, which we study in detail. An infinite number of chaotic bands are observed in this map, which are separated by periodic unstable fixed points. These m bands chaotic attractors become m/2 bands when the period-m unstable fixed points simultaneously collide with the chaotic bands. The distance between two sets of coexisting chaotic bands that are separated by a period-1 unstable fixed point is discussed. We explore the effects of varying a range of parameters of the model. The presented results explain the characteristic behavior of the alternate bearing estimated from the real field data. Effects of noise are also explored. The significance of these results to ecological perspectives of the alternate bearing phenomenon is highlighted.
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental and Agricultural Engineering, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Tokyo 183-85-9, Japan.
authors.forename: Awadhesh
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Prasad
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental and Agricultural Engineering, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Tokyo 183-85-9, Japan.
authors.forename: Kenshi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sakai
mesh_terms: D018556:Crops, Agricultural / Q000502:physiology*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics