Reaction-diffusion for fish populations with realistic mobility

Abstract

Nonlinear reaction-diffusion equations, with Fisher logistic growth and constant diffusion coefficient, have been used in fisheries research to estimate sustainable harvesting rates and critical domain sizes of no-take areas. However, constant diffusivity in a population density corresponds to standard Brownian motion of individuals, with a normal distribution for displacement over a fixed time interval. For available good data sets on mobile fish populations, the distribution is certainly not normal. The data can be fitted with a long-tailed stable Lévy distribution that results from diffusion by fractional Laplacian. Exact multidimensional solutions are developed here for realistic Fisher–Kolmogorov–Petrovski-Piscounov models with diffusion by fractional Laplacian. These can also account for a delay in the reaction term. It is then shown how to modify critical domain sizes of protected areas with Dirichlet and Robin boundary conditions for populations.