Spectral analysis of a two-species competition model: Determining the effects of extreme conditions on the color of noise generated from simulated time series

Ecologists have observed that environmental noise affects population variance in the logistic equation for one-species growth. Interactions between deterministic and stochastic dynamics in a one-dimensional system result in increased variance in species population density over time. Since natural populations do not live in isolation, the present paper simulates a discrete-time two-species competition model with environmental noise to determine the type of colored population noise generated by extreme conditions in the long-term population dynamics of competing populations. Discrete Fourier analysis is applied to the simulation results and the calculated Hurst exponent (H) is used to determine how the color of population noise for the two species corresponds to extreme conditions in population dynamics. To interpret the biological meaning of the color of noise generated by the two-species model, the paper determines the color of noise generated by three reference models: (1) A two-dimensional discrete-time white noise model (0⩽H<1/2); (2) A two-dimensional fractional Brownian motion model (H=1/2); and (3) A two-dimensional discrete-time model with noise for unbounded growth of two uncoupled species (1/2<H⩽1).