During the first half of the 20th century, many scientists studied fluctuations in animal populations.
One of them was the British ecologist and zoologist Charles Sutherland Elton (1900–1991), who founded the Bureau of Animal Population in 1932. Based in Oxford, the institute initially had a staff of five and focused mainly on rodent populations, but grew rapidly.
Patrick Leslie was recruited in 1935. This young Scot, born in 1900, had studied at Oxford. After starting out as an assistant in bacteriology, he gradually turned to statistics. The Bureau of Animal Population happened to possess a vast collection of data on changes in a wide variety of animal populations, and Leslie used these data to test his age-structured model. A few years later, the institute would contribute in its own way to the British war effort during the Second World War, focusing particularly on the proliferation of mice and rats that were damaging the population's food supplies.
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A simplified example
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