 However, Gause then tried to use a microbial model to demonstrate the basic mechanisms represented in another mathematical model of direct interspecies competition (in the form of predator-prey relationships), the Lotka-Volterra equations. In this case, his experimental system repeatedly failed to capture the oscillating dynamics of the equations. This time he used one of the paramecia (P. caudatum) and its unicellular predator, Didinium nasutum. Both species went extinct, unless Gause introduced additional physical parameters or modified the mathematics (Gause 1934b). Does this suggest that microbes simply cannot capture the appropriate dynamics and are unreliable as experimental representations of mathematical models? In fact, an extensive history of subsequent experimentation found that the long-term oscillations predicted by the Lotka-Volterra equations are unrealized in any organismal model system unless major alterations are made to the basic variables. Only very recently have these oscillations been achieved over numerous generations, in an experimental model consisting of unicellular algae and a microscopic metazoan predator (Blasius et al.  2020).[7] 