Invasive competition with Fokker-Planck diffusion and noise

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Fokker-Planck diffusion and environmental noise influence the success of invasive species in a competitive Lotka-Volterra model, highlighting the roles of spatial heterogeneity and stochastic effects.

Contribution

It introduces a model combining space-dependent Fokker-Planck diffusion for residents with Fickian diffusion for invaders, analyzing noise effects on invasion dynamics.

Findings

Environmental noise can both promote and hinder invasion success.

Spatial heterogeneity significantly affects invasion outcomes.

Fokker-Planck diffusion models better reflect resident adaptation to heterogeneous environments.

Abstract

Defeat and success of the competitive invasion of a populated area is described with a standard Lotka-Volterra competition model. The resident is adapted to the heterogeneous living conditions, i.e., its motion is modelled as space-dependent, so-called Fokker-Planck diffusion. The invader's diffusion is taken as neutral Fickian. Furthermore, it is studied how multiplicative environmental noise fosters or hinders the invasion.