Mastering chaos in ecology

Recent developments in dynamical system theory consider chaotic fluctuations of a dynamical system as highly desirable behaviour because fluctuations allow such a system to be easily controlled. This recent development, chaos control theory, has been tested in several physical situations. The intrinsic instability of the orbits embedded in a strange attractor make them easy to change to a more stable and predictable behaviour. The existence of chaos in natural populations, at least in some species of pest insects, makes the topic of importance in pest management. The techniques proposed to achieve control over a chaotic dynamical system are presented and discussed in an ecological context. An important point in the application of this technique to real systems is the amount of noise involved in the estimation of the parameters of the system. It is also important in the determination of the perturbations required in the control parameters of the system. The theoretical possibility of obtaining these estimations in field population biology provides opportunities for using these techniques in pest management. The control of chaos theory shows how chaotic systems can be controlled by stable and linked systems. The possibility that chaotic behaviour has been seldom found in nature because of the existence of linked phenomena is discussed. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.