  A randomly interacting N-species Lotka-Volterra system in the presence of a
Gaussian multiplicative noise is analyzed. The investigation is focused on the
role of this external noise into the statistical properties of the extinction
times of the populations. The distributions show a Gaussian shape for each
noise intensity value investigated. A monotonic behavior of the mean extinction
time as a function of the noise intensity is found, while a nonmonotonic
behavior of the width of the extinction time probability distribution
characterizes the dynamical evolution.
