ORI PUBLISHES PAPER - A Historical Review of Our Knowledge of Brown Lemming Population Cycles at Barrow, Alaska: Cycles No More or Never Before
Lemming and vole populations rise and fall in periodic but unpredictable fluctuations that have been observed for centuries. Although modern research has documented patterns every 4–6 years, no single factor, ie. food, predators, disease, or social stress, fully explains these outbreaks. Instead, multiple forces interact to produce population changes that resemble cycles but are better understood as recurring fluctuations rather than true, predictable cycles.
