Abstract
This paper reports on the design and construction of a novel apparatus that allows a set of aquatic microcosms to experience complex temporal environmental fluctuations. Replicate microcosms were maintained in 18 water baths with independent environmental controls. We give results from a preliminary experiment designed to look at the effects of varying temperatures with different variance spectra (i.e. white noise or 1/f noise) on single species population dynamics. Matching time series (with identical elements, differently ordered) of environmental temperatures with different Fourier spectra were created for use as input to the apparatus using a novel spectral mimicry method. The apparatus functioned well during the course of the experiment making this an extremely useful research tool. This apparatus now provides ecologists with a means of studying how environmental variability and directional trends in this variability, are filtered and translated by real populations and micro-ecosystems.
Full Text
The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (390.8 KB).
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Lawton J. H. Ecological experiments with model systems. Science. 1995 Jul 21;269(5222):328–331. doi: 10.1126/science.269.5222.328. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Leigh E. G., Jr The average lifetime of a population in a varying environment. J Theor Biol. 1981 May 21;90(2):213–239. doi: 10.1016/0022-5193(81)90044-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- doi: 10.1098/rspb.1997.0254. [DOI] [PMC free article] [Google Scholar]