Fig. 1

Transient dynamics of predator and prey without and with disturbances. Grey and dark blue filled circles correspond to the experimentally determined mean predator and prey population dynamics respectively. Error bars represent ± standard deviation. Solid lines correspond to the model simulations (only daily time steps are shown). a Population dynamics without disturbance; b under press disturbance and c under pulse disturbance. Control without disturbance is with tenfold daily dilution, press disturbance corresponds to 40-fold dilution between the days 22–32 and pulse disturbance to 2500-fold dilution on the day 15. Disturbance action is shown as grey shadows