Strategic nomadic-colonial switching: Stochastic noise and subsidence-recovery cycles

TL;DR

This study extends a population model with nomadic and colonial behaviors by incorporating stochastic environmental noise, demonstrating robustness of switching strategies and revealing potential subsidence-recovery cycles relevant to biological and physical systems.

Contribution

It introduces a stochastic noise framework to a population switching model and proposes a resource depletion-aware, size-dependent switching scheme, enhancing ecological realism.

Findings

Robustness of switching strategies under stochastic noise

Potential for subsidence-recovery cycles in population dynamics

Model applicability to biological and physical systems

Abstract

Previously, we developed a population model incorporating the Allee effect and periodic environmental fluctuations, in which organisms alternate between nomadic and colonial behaviours. This switching strategy is regulated by biological clocks and the abundance of environmental resources, and can lead to population persistence despite both behaviours being individually losing. In the present study, we consider stochastic noise models in place of the original periodic ones, thereby allowing a wider range of environmental fluctuations to be modelled. The theoretical framework is generalized to account for resource depletion by both nomadic and colonial sub-populations, and an ecologically realistic population size-dependent switching scheme is proposed. We demonstrate the robustness of the modified switching scheme to stochastic noise, and we also present the intriguing possibility of consecutive subsidence-recovery cycles within the resulting population dynamics. Our results have relevance in biological and physical systems.