Perturbation Theory for Population Dynamics.pdfVIP

Perturbation Theory for Population Dynamics 7 0 0 Francisco M. Fern´andez 2 c INIFTA (Conicet, UNLP), Divisi´on Qu´ımica Te´orica, e D Diag. 113 y 64 (S/N), Sucursal 4, Casilla de Correo 16, 0 1900 La Plata, Argentina 2 E–mail: fernande@quimica.unlp.edu.ar ] h p February 2, 2008 - h t a m Abstract [ We prove that a recently proposed homotopy perturbation method 1 for the treatment of population dynamics is just the Taylor expansion v 6 of the population variables about initial time. Our results show that 7 this perturbation method fails to provide the global features of the 3 ecosystem dynamics. 3 . 2 1 1 Introduction 7 0 : v Recently, Chowdhury et al [1] proposed the application of homotopy–perturbation i method (HPM) to simple models of population dynamics and obtained ap- X r proximate solutions in the form of perturbation series. The authors show a that their approximate analytical results agree with the numerical solution of the problem and appear to suggest that the HPM series are convergent. A straightforward inspection of such series reveals that they are merely Taylor expansions of the time variable. One does not expect such a local approximation to provide a reasonable description of the dynamics of non- linear systems, except in the neighbourhood of the initial conditions. Singular poin