1. The paper by Hassell,Lawton & May (1976) on the characterization of natural population dynamicsby fitting field and laboratory data to a discrete model is reviewed. Inparticular, we study the effects of spatial degrees of freedom on the qualitativebehaviour of such single population maps.
2. Using the spatially extendedcounterpart of these discrete systems by means of the coupled map latticeformalism, we show that space is able to induce dynamical bifurcations.
3. As the spatial domainis increased, the stability boundaries in the parameter space are modified,driving the popoulation through different kinds of dynamics. The same resultis reached by increasing the diffusion rate for a given lattice size.
cheap hotel in Avignon4. Our results suggest thatthe dynamical behaviour shown by a population depends not only on intrinsicfactors, but also on external or environmental ones. Some evidence fromfield studies is also discussed.