Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba)—one of the most abundant animal species on Earth—exhibits a five to six year population cycle, with oscillations in biomass exceeding one order of magnitude. Previous studies have postulated that the krill cycle is …
Spatial correlations in environmental stochasticity can synchronize populations over wide areas, a phenomenon known as the Moran effect. The Moran effect has been confirmed in field, laboratory and theoretical investigations. Little is known, …
We analyze synchronization between two interacting populations of different phase oscillators. For the important case of asymmetric coupling functions, we find a much richer dynamical behavior compared to that of symmetrically coupled populations of …
Complex dynamics, such as population cycles, can arise when the individual members of a population become synchronized. However, it is an open question how readily and through which mechanisms synchronization-driven cycles can occur in unstructured …
We characterize the spatiotemporal evolution of a photosensitive Belousov-Zhabotinsky medium that is made up of coupled oscillatory cells with randomly distributed frequencies. The medium evolves from an initial state of multiple wave sources to a …
We study the pattern formation in a lattice of locally coupled phase oscillators with quenched disorder. In the synchronized regime quasiregular concentric waves can arise which are induced by the disorder of the system. Maximal regularity is found …
We report the phenomenon of anomalous phase synchronization in interacting oscillator systems with randomly distributed parameters. We show that coupling is first able to enlarge the frequency disorder leading to maximal decoherence for intermediate …
Population cycles that persist in time and are synchronized over space pervade ecological systems, but their underlying causes remain a long-standing enigma. Here we examine the synchronization of complex population oscillations in networks of model communities and in natural systems. In the proposed spatial model, each local patch sustains a three-level trophic system composed of interacting predators, consumers and vegetation. Populations oscillate regularly and periodically in phase, but with irregular and chaotic peaks together in abundance—twin realistic features that are not found in standard ecological models...