4 ms·
What does it matter whether their cycles are primes when their predators all have cycles of 1?
by LgWoodenBadger 3y ago
What does it matter whether their cycles are primes when their predators all have cycles of 1?
- weberer 3y agoIt becomes a problem if broods emerge two years in a row. Then the predator population would not have enough time to die down before the second emergence.
- zem 3y agoif predators breed annually, that means that one year is the clock-tick, not the cycle. as a very simplified example, let's say there is some fixed availability of prey. so if there are a ton of predators born and/or come to maturity in one year, they will exhaust the food supply, spend their time and energy fighting for food or starving, and have a population crash next year. the reduced population that year will have a glut of food and a surplus of time and energy for breeding, leading to a boom the year after that, for a two-year cycle with a one-year tick.