Steady states in hierarchical structured populations with distributed states at birth

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the existence and stability of steady states in a hierarchical size-structured population model with distributed recruitment, using fixed point theorems and operator theory.

Contribution

It establishes conditions for positive steady states and examines their stability in a complex size-structured population model with arbitrary size recruitment.

Findings

Conditions for existence of positive steady states

Stability analysis for models with separable growth rates

Application of fixed point and operator theory methods

Abstract

We investigate steady states of a quasilinear first order hyperbolic partial integro-differential equation. The model describes the evolution of a hierarchical structured population with distributed states at birth. Hierarchical size-structured models describe the dynamics of populations when individuals experience size-specific environment. This is the case for example in a population where individuals exhibit cannibalistic behavior and the chance to become prey (or to attack) depends on the individual's size. The other distinctive feature of the model is that individuals are recruited into the population at arbitrary size. This amounts to an infinite rank integral operator describing the recruitment process. First we establish conditions for the existence of a positive steady state of the model. Our method uses a fixed point result of nonlinear maps in conical shells of Banach spaces. Then we study stability properties of steady states for the special case of a separable growth rate using results from the theory of positive operators on Banach lattices.