Temporal self‐similarity created by spatial individual‐based population dynamics

We report an individual‐based single‐species model producing temporal scale‐free, self‐similar dynamics in time. Individuals in the population renew in an explicit space with a large number of loci. We show that reproduction, subsequent dispersal of the offspring, and mortality will organise population fluctuations such that the emerging dynamics represent power law and scale‐free structures. Further, we show that spatially structured population dynamics may show red frequency spectra, a property that the simple nonlinear population models are generally lacking.