  We study the stability and synchronization of predator-prey populations
subjected to noise. The system is described by patches of local populations
coupled by migration and predation over a neighborhood. When a single patch is
considered, random perturbations tend to destabilize the populations, leading
to extinction. If the number of patches is small, stabilization in the presence
of noise is maintained at the expense of synchronization. As the number of
patches increases, both the stability and the synchrony among patches increase.
However, a residual asynchrony, large compared with the noise amplitude, seems
to persist even in the limit of infinite number of patches. Therefore, the
mechanism of stabilization by asynchrony recently proposed by R. Abta et. al.,
combining noise, diffusion and nonlinearities, seems to be more general than
first proposed.
