Generalized logistic equation on networks (Q6172253)

A metapopulation is a population of a single species which is distributed in a set of patches, namely, a set of geographic regions isolated between them. The article studies a metapopulation model of \(n\) patches described by the system of ordinary differential equations \[ \frac{dx_{i}}{dt}=x_{i}\varphi_{i}(x_{i})+\varepsilon \sum\limits_{j=1,j\neq i}^{n}(\gamma_{ij}x_{j}-\gamma_{ji}x_{i}) \quad i=1,\ldots,n, \] where \(x_{i}\) represents the population density of the species in the \(i\)-th patch, and \(\varepsilon\geq 0\) is called a diffusion coefficient. In addition, the non negative matrix \(\Gamma :=\{\gamma_{ij}\}\) have coefficients \(\gamma_{ij}\) describing the flow of population from the patch \(j\) towards the patch \(i\) when \(i\neq j\). Notice that, if \(\varepsilon=0\), there are no migration between the patches and the population growth at the \(i\)-th patch is described by \[ \frac{dx_{i}}{dt}=x_{i}\varphi_{i}(x_{i}) \quad i=1,\ldots,n, \] where \(\varphi_{i}(x_{i})\) represents the per-capita growth rate of the population in the \(i\)-th patch. It is assumed that the functions \(x\mapsto \varphi_{i}(x)\) verify: \(\varphi_{i}(0)>0\), \(\frac{d\varphi_{i}}{dx_{i}}(x_{i})<0\), there exists \(K_{i}>0\) such that \(\varphi_{i}(K_{i})=0\) and \(x\varphi_{i}(x)\to -\infty\) as \(x\to +\infty\). An iconic example is given by the logistic growth, which corresponds to the map \(\varphi_{i}(x)=r_{i}\left(1-\frac{x}{K_{i}}\right)\). A direct consequence of the above assumptions about \(\varphi_{i}\) is that, if \(\varepsilon=0\) then any positive solution verifies \(\lim\limits_{t\to +\infty}x_{i}(t)=K_{i}\) and the constant \(K_{i}\) is called the carrying capacity of the \(i\)--th patch. Notice that, in absence of diffusion, the total population is convergent to the sum of the carrying capacities \(K_{1}+\ldots +K_{n}\). A complementary assumption of the model is that the matrix \(\Gamma:=\{\gamma_{ij}\}\) is irreducible and its diagonal terms verify the property: \[ \gamma_{ii}=\sum\limits_{j=1,j\neq i}\gamma_{ji}, \] which allows to prove (Theorem 6) the existence, uniqueness and global attractiveness of a unique positive equilibrium \(E_{n}^{*}(\varepsilon)=(x_{1}^{*}(\varepsilon),\ldots,x_{n}^{*}(\varepsilon))\). The main results of this article are described in Sections 4 and 5: in Section 4, its is proved (Theorem 7) that \[ \lim\limits_{\varepsilon\to + \infty}E_{n}^{*}(\varepsilon)=\lambda_{0}\delta, \] where \(\delta=(\delta_{1},\ldots,\delta_{n})^{T}\) is a positive vector which generates the kernel of \(\Gamma\) and \(\lambda_{0}\) is solution of \[ \sum\limits_{i=1}^{n}\delta_{i}\varphi_{i}(\delta_{i}x)=0. \] In addition, for any solution \(t\mapsto (x_{1}(t,\varepsilon),\ldots,x_{n}(t,\varepsilon))\) of the metapopulation model, the Theorems 9 and 10 provide asymptotic estimations of type \[ \sum\limits_{i=1}^{n}x_{i}(t,\varepsilon)=Y(t)+\textit{o}(1), \] where \(Y(t)\) is solution of a related differential equation. The Section 5 is devoted to study the properties of the total equilibrium population \[ T_{n}^{*}(\varepsilon):=\sum\limits_{i=1}^{n}x_{i}^{*}(t,\varepsilon) \] and to find sufficient conditions ensuring that \(T_{n}^{*}(\varepsilon)\geq T_{n}^{*}(0)=K_{1}+\ldots+K_{n}\), that is, to determine situations where the diffusion promotes a total population which is bigger than the sum of the carrying capacities. Finally, the Section 6 is devoted to a deeper study in the case \(n=2\), namely, properties of the positive equilibria and dependence about some parameters.