Seasonality in ecology: Progress and prospects in theory
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
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Abstract
Seasonality is an important feature of essentially all natural systems but the consequences of seasonality have been vastly underappreciated. Early work emphasized the role of seasonality in driving cyclic population dynamics, but the consequences of seasonality for ecological processes are far broader. Yet, seasonality is often not explicitly included in either empirical or theoretical studies. Many aspects of ecological dynamics can only be understood when seasonality is included, ranging from the oscillations in the incidence of childhood diseases to the coexistence of species. Through several case studies, we outline what is now known about seasonality in an ecological context and set the stage for future efforts. We discuss approaches for incorporating seasonality in mathematical models, including Floquet theory. We argue, however, that these tools are still limited in scope and more approaches need to be developed.
Cite this as
2019. Seasonality in ecology: Progress and prospects in theory. PeerJ Preprints 7:e27235v2 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27235v2note This preprint is not peer-reviewed. You may wish to reference the subsequent peer-reviewed version of this article.
Author comment
This new version includes fewer tables/figures and reduces the overall length by making sections more concise.
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Competing Interests
Alan Hastings is an Academic Editor for PeerJ.
Author Contributions
Easton R White conceived and designed the experiments, analyzed the data, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Alan Hastings conceived and designed the experiments, analyzed the data, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Data Deposition
The following information was supplied regarding data availability:
Funding
ERW was partially supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant DMS-1817124. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
