Adaptation to a heterogeneous patchy environment with nonlocal dispersion

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the equilibrium states of a population model with local and non-local dispersal in heterogeneous environments, revealing how environmental fragmentation influences phenotypic diversity.

Contribution

It provides an asymptotic analysis linking the population's phenotypic distribution to environmental heterogeneity using Hamilton-Jacobi equations.

Findings

Low heterogeneity leads to unimodal phenotypic distribution.

High heterogeneity causes multi-modal phenotypic distributions.

Characterizes qualitative properties of phenotypic density at equilibrium.

Abstract

In this work, we provide an asymptotic analysis of the solutions to an elliptic integro-differential equation. This equation describes the evolutionary equilibria of a phenotypically structured population, subject to selection, mutation, and both local and non-local dispersion in a spatially heterogeneous, possibly patchy, environment. Considering small effects of mutations, we provide an asymptotic description of the equilibria of the phenotypic density. This asymptotic description involves a Hamilton-Jacobi equation with constraint coupled with an eigenvalue problem. Based on such analysis, we characterize some qualitative properties of the phenotypic density at equilibrium depending on the heterogeneity of the environment. In particular, we show that when the heterogeneity of the environment is low, the population concentrates around a single phenotypic trait leading to a unimodal phenotypic distribution. On the contrary, a strong fragmentation of the environment leads to multi-modal phenotypic distributions.