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Mammalian cycles: internally defined periods and interaction-driven amplitudes

The cause of mammalian cycles—the rise and fall of populations over a predictable period of time—has remained controversial since these patterns were first observed over a century ago. In spite of extensive work on observable mammalian cycles, the field has remained divided upon what the true cause...

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Autores principales: Ginzburg, LR, Krebs, CJ
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4558083/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26339557
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1180
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author Ginzburg, LR
Krebs, CJ
author_facet Ginzburg, LR
Krebs, CJ
author_sort Ginzburg, LR
collection PubMed
description The cause of mammalian cycles—the rise and fall of populations over a predictable period of time—has remained controversial since these patterns were first observed over a century ago. In spite of extensive work on observable mammalian cycles, the field has remained divided upon what the true cause is, with a majority of opinions attributing it to either predation or to intra-species mechanisms. Here we unite the eigenperiod hypothesis, which describes an internal, maternal effect-based mechanism to explain the cycles’ periods with a recent generalization explaining the amplitude of snowshoe hare cycles in northwestern North America based on initial predator abundance. By explaining the period and the amplitude of the cycle with separate mechanisms, a unified and consistent view of the causation of cycles is reached. Based on our suggested theory, we forecast the next snowshoe hare cycle (predicted peak in 2016) to be of extraordinarily low amplitude.
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spelling pubmed-45580832015-09-03 Mammalian cycles: internally defined periods and interaction-driven amplitudes Ginzburg, LR Krebs, CJ PeerJ Ecology The cause of mammalian cycles—the rise and fall of populations over a predictable period of time—has remained controversial since these patterns were first observed over a century ago. In spite of extensive work on observable mammalian cycles, the field has remained divided upon what the true cause is, with a majority of opinions attributing it to either predation or to intra-species mechanisms. Here we unite the eigenperiod hypothesis, which describes an internal, maternal effect-based mechanism to explain the cycles’ periods with a recent generalization explaining the amplitude of snowshoe hare cycles in northwestern North America based on initial predator abundance. By explaining the period and the amplitude of the cycle with separate mechanisms, a unified and consistent view of the causation of cycles is reached. Based on our suggested theory, we forecast the next snowshoe hare cycle (predicted peak in 2016) to be of extraordinarily low amplitude. PeerJ Inc. 2015-08-13 /pmc/articles/PMC4558083/ /pubmed/26339557 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1180 Text en © 2015 Ginzburg and Krebs http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Ecology
Ginzburg, LR
Krebs, CJ
Mammalian cycles: internally defined periods and interaction-driven amplitudes
title Mammalian cycles: internally defined periods and interaction-driven amplitudes
title_full Mammalian cycles: internally defined periods and interaction-driven amplitudes
title_fullStr Mammalian cycles: internally defined periods and interaction-driven amplitudes
title_full_unstemmed Mammalian cycles: internally defined periods and interaction-driven amplitudes
title_short Mammalian cycles: internally defined periods and interaction-driven amplitudes
title_sort mammalian cycles: internally defined periods and interaction-driven amplitudes
topic Ecology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4558083/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26339557
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1180
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