Population dynamics in variable environments. VI. Cyclical environments.

This paper studies the dynamics of an age-structured population which experiences cyclical variation in vital rates. The principal features of population behavior are found to be contained in an explicitly calculable response function. Three distinct regimes of qualitative behavior are described when cycle period is respectively much less than, of the order of, and much greater than the average generation length. These results make explicit the way in which transient properties corresponding to average vital rates determine population response to cycles.