concept

Lotka-Volterra equations

A startlingly simple pair of equations, written independently by Alfred Lotka and Vito Volterra in the 1920s, describing how predator and prey numbers drive each other. From just three assumptions - prey breed on their own, predators eat them whenever they meet, predators starve without them - the equations predict that the two populations will oscillate forever in linked waves, the predator peak always lagging a beat behind the prey peak.