In an ecological system with two predator and two prey species, theory predicts two ways in which the species' population dynamics can become coupled. If both predators eat both prey, then prey populations will oscillate together, booming when predators are rare and crashing when predators, faced with a prey glut, boom in turn. But if each predator eats a separate prey, and the two prey species compete, theory says the prey populations will oscillate out of sync from one another, as first one, then the other, dominates resources.
Jef Huisman of the University of Amsterdam and his colleagues studied eight years of measurements from a Baltic Sea plankton community maintained in a laboratory. From amid the chaos of thousands of population measurements, they were able to discern for the first time in real life two coupled predator–prey cycles oscillating out of sync, showing strong effects of prey competition.
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Ecology: Boom and bust. Nature 462, 15 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/462015d
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/462015d
