Spatial dynamics of a population in a heterogeneous environment

arXiv2105.06985MaRDI QIDQ6367674FDOQ6367674

P. Maillard, Gaël Raoul, Julie Tourniaire

Publication date: 14 May 2021

Abstract: We consider a certain lattice branching random walk with on-site competition and in an environment which is heterogeneous at a macroscopic scale $1/varepsilon$ in space and time. This can be seen as a model for the spatial dynamics of a biological population in a habitat which is heterogeneous at a large scale (mountains, temperature or precipitation gradient...). The model incorporates another parameter, $K$, which is a measure of the local population density. We study the model in the limit when first $varepsilono0$ and then $Koinfty$. In this asymptotic regime, we show that the rescaled position of the front as a function of time converges to the solution of an explicit ODE. We further discuss the relation with another popular model of population dynamics, the Fisher-KPP equation, which arises in the limit $Koinfty$. Combined with known results on the Fisher-KPP equation, our results show in particular that the limits $varepsilono0$ and $Koinfty$ do not commute in general. We conjecture that an interpolating regime appears when $logK$ and $1/varepsilon$ are of the same order.

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