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Population dynamics has traditionally been the dominant branch of mathematical biology, which has a history of more than 220 years, [1] although over the last century the scope of mathematical biology has greatly expanded. [citation needed] The beginning of population dynamics is widely regarded as the work of Malthus, formulated as the ...
A logistic function or logistic curve is a common S-shaped curve ( sigmoid curve) with the equation. where. is the carrying capacity, the supremum of the values of the function; is the logistic growth rate, the steepness of the curve; and. is the value of the function's midpoint.
Carrying capacity. The carrying capacity of an environment is the maximum population size of a biological species that can be sustained by that specific environment, given the food, habitat, water, and other resources available. The carrying capacity is defined as the environment 's maximal load, [clarification needed] which in population ...
The Lotka–Volterra equations, also known as the Lotka–Volterra predator–prey model, are a pair of first-order nonlinear [disambiguation needed] differential equations, frequently used to describe the dynamics of biological systems in which two species interact, one as a predator and the other as prey. The populations change through time ...
Here x is the size of the population at a given time, r is inherent per-capita growth rate, and K is the carrying capacity. Two species. Given two populations, x 1 and x 2, with logistic dynamics, the Lotka–Volterra formulation adds an additional term to account for the species' interactions. Thus the competitive Lotka–Volterra equations are:
A Malthusian growth model, sometimes called a simple exponential growth model, is essentially exponential growth based on the idea of the function being proportional to the speed to which the function grows. The model is named after Thomas Robert Malthus, who wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798), one of the earliest and most ...
The logistic model (or logistic function) is a function that is used to describe bounded population growth under the previous two assumptions. The logistic function is bounded at both extremes: when there are not individuals to reproduce, and when there is an equilibrium number of individuals (i.e., at carrying capacity ).
Population growth against time in a population growing logistically. The steepest parts of the graph are where the population growth is most rapid. The logistic growth equation is an effective tool for modelling intraspecific competition despite its simplicity, and has been used to model many real biological systems.