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Updated: Aug 9, 2026

Fourier-Based Diffraction Analysis of Live Caenorhabditis elegans
Published on: September 13, 2017
Wave of chaos: new mechanism of pattern formation in spatio-temporal population dynamics
1Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Nakhimovsky Prospect 36, Moscow, 117218, Russia. spetros@sio.rssi.ru
Abstract:
The dynamics of a simple prey-predator system is described by a system of two reaction- diffusion equations with biologically reasonable non-linearities (logistic growth of the prey, Holling type II functional response of the predator). We show that, when the local kinetics of the system is oscillatory, for a wide class of initial conditions the evolution of the system leads to the formation of a non-stationary irregular pattern corresponding to spatio-temporal chaos. The chaotic pattern first appears inside a sub-domain of the system. This sub-domain then steadily grows with time and, finally, the chaotic pattern invades the whole space, displacing the regular pattern.
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