Evolution of Dispersal in Advective Patchy Environments

Abstract

We study a two-species competition model in a patchy advective environment, where the species are subject to both directional drift and undirectional random dispersal between patches and there are losses of individuals in the downstream end (e.g., due to the flow into a lake or ocean). The two competing species are assumed to have the same growth rates but different advection and random dispersal rates. We focus our studies on the properties of an associated eigenvalue problem which characterizes the extinction/persistence dynamics of the underlying patch population model. We also derive conditions on the advection and random dispersal rates under which a mutant species can or cannot invade the resident species.