A Canonical Lagrangian Formulation of the Two-Dimensional Lotka-Volterra System

Abstract

Hamiltonian and Lagrangian mechanics are powerful frameworks for analyzing physical systems. Previous work has extended these formalisms to ecological systems, such as the predator-prey Lotka-Volterra (LV) system. In this Article, we derive a canonical Lagrangian for the two-dimensional LV model directly from its Hamiltonian representation. We find that the two-dimensional LV system admits a standard canonical Lagrangian formulation with one degree of freedom and a non-quadratic kinetic structure. This formulation admits a mechanical interpretation in terms of a particle moving in a potential well, where the non-standard kinetic structure produces a position-dependent damping term that can instead act as"revving."The derivation provides a direct connection between predator-prey dynamics and a canonical formulation of mechanical dynamics. As a verification of the construction, we apply Noether's procedure to the explicitly time-independent derived Lagrangian and reveal that the well-known Hamiltonian of the LV system is the corresponding conserved quantity. We also uncover a subtle redundancy associated with the choice of canonical momentum and its identification with the original population variables.