The bisexual Galton-Watson process with promiscuous mating: Extinction probabilities in the supercritical case (Q2564696)

This paper studies the bisexual Galton-Watson process, stimulated by numerical calculations presented by \textit{D. J. Daley, D. M. Hull} and \textit{J. M. Taylor} [J. Appl. Probab. 23, 585-600 (1986; Zbl 0611.60083)]. This is a two-type process (males and females) with a mating function \(\zeta\), so that when there are \(f\) females and \(m\) males in a generation these form \(\zeta(f,m)\) mating units, each of which reproduces independently and identically to produce a family of males and females. In this way the process moves from one generation to the next. This paper considers promiscuous mating, in which the number of mating units is just the number of females, unless there are no males when no reproduction occurs and the population dies out. Let \(Z_{n}\) be the number of mating units in generation \(n\), which, under promiscuous mating, equals the number of females, provided there are some males. The probability of producing no males at generation \(n+1\) is just \(\kappa^{Z_{n}}\), where \(\kappa\) is the probability a mating unit produces no males. The supercritical process is considered, in which the average number of females in a family exceeds one and \(\kappa<1\). Clearly \(Z_{n}\) evolves like the (ordinary) Galton-Watson process based on the female lines with additional `catastrophes' introduced by the possibility that no males are produced. Let \(q\) be the extinction probability for the Galton-Watson process based on female-only reproduction ignoring the additional catastrophes. The probability of extinction of the bisexual process started from \(k\) mating units is shown to be comparable to \(q^{k}\), when \(q<\kappa\) and to \(\kappa^{k}\) when \(q> \kappa\); a precise estimate is also given for the \(q=\kappa\) case.