A novel experimental apparatus to study the impact of white noise and 1/f noise on animal populations

摘要

This paper reports on the design and construction of a novel apparatus that allows a set of aquatic micro-\udcosms to experience complex temporal environmental £uctuations. Replicate microcosms were maintained\udin 18 water baths with independent environmental controls.We give results from a preliminary experiment\uddesigned to look at the e¡ects of varying temperatures with di¡erent variance spectra (i.e. white noise or 1/f\udnoise) on single species population dynamics. Matching time series (with identical elements, di¡erently\udordered) of environmental temperatures with di¡erent Fourier spectra were created for use as input to the\udapparatus using a novel spectral mimicry method. The apparatus functioned well during the course of the\udexperiment making this an extremely useful research tool. This apparatus now provides ecologists with a\udmeans of studying how environmental variability, and directional trends in this variability, are ¢ltered and\udtranslated by real populations andmicro-ecosystems.