Toro, Miguel with Javier Aracil, "Chaotic Behavior in Predator-Prey-Food System Dynamics Models.", 1986
ua435
A great interest has been raised recently on chaotic behavior in system dynamics models. This interest is largely justified. The discovery that deterministic systems can show chaotic behavior has deep consequences for the system dynamicist. Among other things, it is well known that strange attractors show a pathological sensitivity to initial conditions. This property impedes the use of a single trayectory (obtained by simulation) as representative of the system behavior. So, the traditional working way of the system dynamicist should be deeply reconsidered if these strange attractors are exhibited by their models. This last is higly possible due to the nonlinear character of these models. Therefore, the system dynamicist should be able to study whether or not those attractors appear in his models. If they appear, then the classical study through the analysis of the trajectory should be rejected, and studies of an stochastic nature -not yet well understood- should be undertaken.