Isocline
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An Isocline is a series of lines with the same slope. The word comes from the Greek words Isos (Ίδιος) meaning "same" and Klini (κλίση) meaning "slope."
It is often used as a graphical method of solving ordinary differential equations. In an equation of the form y' = f(x), the isoclines are given putting f(x) equal to a constant. This gives a series of lines (for different constants) along which the solution curves have the same gradient. By calculating this gradient for each isocline, the slope field can be visualised; making it relatively easy to sketch approximate solution curves; as in fig. 1.
In population dynamics refers to the set of population sizes at which the rate of change, or partial derivative, for one population in a pair of interacting populations is zero.
[edit] References
Hanski, I. (1999) Metapopulation Ecology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 43-46.
