Name Pierre Verhulst Role Mathematician | Education Ghent University | |
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Died February 15, 1849, Brussels, Belgium | ||
Pierre François Verhulst (28 October 1804, Brussels – 15 February 1849, Brussels) was a mathematician and a doctor in number theory from the University of Ghent in 1825.
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Logistic equation
Verhulst published in 1838 the equation:
where N(t) represents number of individuals at time t, r the intrinsic growth rate, and
Later, Raymond Pearl and Lowell Reed popularized the equation, but with a presumed equilibrium, K, as
where K sometimes represents the maximum number of individuals that the environment can support. In relation to the density-dependent crowding effect,
where C = 1/N(0) − 1/K is determined by the initial condition N(0). The solution can also be written as a weighted harmonic mean of the initial condition and the carrying capacity,
Although the continuous-time logistic equation is often compared to the logistic map because of similarity of form, it is actually more closely related to the Beverton–Holt model of fisheries recruitment.
The concept of R/K selection theory derives its name from the competing dynamics of exponential growth and carrying capacity introduced by the equations above.