SOC in a population model with global control

We study a plant population model introduced recently by Wallinga (OIKOS 74 (1995) 377). It is similar to the contact process (‘simple epidemic’, ‘directed percolation’), but instead of using an infection or recovery rate as control parameter, the population size is controlled directly and globally by removing excess plants. We show that the model is very closely related to directed percolation (DP). Anomalous scaling laws appear in the limit of large populations, small densities, and long times. These laws, associated critical exponents, and even some non-universal parameters, can be related to those of DP. As in invasion percolation and in other models where the rôles of control and order parameters are interchanged, the critical value pc of the wetting probability p is obtained in the scaling limit as singular point in the distribution of removal rates. We show that a mean field type approximation leads to a model studied by Zhang et al. (J. Stat. Phys. 58 (1990) 849). Finally, we verify the claim of Wallinga that family extinction in a marginally surviving population is governed by DP scaling laws, and speculate on applications to human mitochondrial DNA.