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.

PACS numbers: 05.40.--a, 05.45.--a, 87.23.Cc, 89.75.--k