Transitions in a logistic population model incorporating an Allee effect

Abstract

In some species, the population may decline to zero; that is, the species becomes extinct if the population falls below a given threshold. This phenomenon is well known as an Allee effect. In most Allee models, the model parameters are constants, and the population tends either to a nonzero limiting state (survival) or to zero (extinction). However, when environmental changes occur, these parameters may be slowly varying functions of time. Then, application of multitiming techniques allows us to construct approximations to the evolving population in cases where the population survives to a slowly varying surviving state and those where the population declines to zero. Here, we investigate the solution of a logistic population model exhibiting an Allee effect, when the carrying capacity and the limiting density interchange roles, via a transition point. We combine multiscaling analysis with local asymptotic analysis at the transition point to obtain an overall expression for the evolution of the population. We show that this shows excellent agreement with the results of numerical computations. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.