Counter-Examples about Lower- and Upper-Bounded Population Growth

ABSTRACT For a unimodal growth function f having its maximum at a critical state x c , the interval bounding the population size asymptotically is usually presented as being equal to [f ○2(x c ), f(x c )]. This interval however does not represent the maximum range within which the population size can vary, even asymptotically. The actual invariant interval containing the population size is equal to: [min(x*, f ○2(x c )), f(x c )], where x* denotes the non-zero fixed point, assumed to be unique, of the iteration of f.