Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

Population biology

Crash tests for real

Nature volume 398, pages 371–372 (1999)Cite this article

In Tom Stoppard's play Arcadia1, which weaves together themes of Byron scholarship, landscape gardening and chaos, along with much human goings-on, one of the characters is doing postgraduate research on the population cycles of grouse. In the play, Valentine gives up; it is all too complicated. Two experimental studies, one on grouse cycles2 and the other on vole cycles3, could have changed his mind.

In real life, grouse cycles are broadly acknowledged to be caused by density-dependent regulatory effects, acting with time delays. But there has been great debate about whether these effects derive from the grouse populations' interactions with food supplies or vertebrate predators or parasite infestations or territory size or other factors4. Hudson et al.2 seem to settle these questions, using experimental manipulations to “demonstrate that parasites are the cause of the cyclic fluctuations”.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Red grouse.

CORBIS/ROGER WILMSHURST

References

  1. Stoppard, T. Arcadia (Faber & Faber, London, 1993).

  2. Hudson, P. J., Dobson, A. P. & Newborn, D. Science 282, 2256–2258 (1998).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Korpimäki, E. & Norrdahl, K. Ecology 79, 2448–2455 (1998).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Krebs, J. R. & May, R. M. Nature 343, 310–311 (1990).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  5. Hudson, P. J. Grouse in Space and Time (Game Conservancy Trust, Fordingbridge, UK, 1992).

  6. May, R. M. & Anderson, R. M. J. Anim. Ecol. 47, 249–267 (1978).

    Google Scholar 

  7. Dobson, A. P. & Hudson, P. J. J. Anim. Ecol. 61, 487–498 (1992).

    Google Scholar 

  8. Hudson, P. J., Newborn, D. & Dobson, A. P. J. Anim. Ecol. 61, 477–486 (1992).

    Google Scholar 

  9. Norrdahl, K. & Korpimäki, E. Oecologia 103, 241–248 (1995).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PS, UK

    Robert M. May

Authors
  1. Robert M. May
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

May, R. Crash tests for real. Nature 398, 371–372 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/18769

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/18769

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing