Population dynamics at high Reynolds number

TL;DR

This paper investigates how turbulent fluid flows affect population distribution and growth, revealing localization effects, reduced carrying capacity, and multifractal properties through numerical analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of population dynamics in turbulent flows, highlighting the effects of turbulence on localization and carrying capacity, with new numerical insights into growth rate limits.

Findings

Turbulence causes population localization and reduces carrying capacity.

Population density exhibits multifractal scaling.

Small growth rates lead to population delocalization.

Abstract

We study the statistical properties of population dynamics evolving in a realistic two-dimensional compressible turbulent velocity field. We show that the interplay between turbulent dynamics and population growth and saturation leads to quasi-localization and a remarkable reduction in the carrying capacity. The statistical properties of the population density are investigated and quantified via multifractal scaling analysis. We also investigate numerically the singular limit of negligibly small growth rates and delocalization of population ridges triggered by uniform advection.