Experimental Demonstration of Volterra’s Periodic Oscillations in the Numbers of Animals

ABSTRACT From purely theoretical considerations Lotka (1920) and Volterra (1926) concluded that a biological system consisting of two interdependent species (predator and prey) will exhibit regular periodic fluctuations in respect to the absolute and relative abundance of each species, even when random fluctuations due to external environmental factors have been eliminated. So far as is known this conclusion has not been investigated by direct experimental methods.