Evolution of dispersal in advective patchy environments with varying drift rates

TL;DR

This paper investigates how varying drift rates in a two-species competition model influence which species dominates, revealing that the shape of drift rate functions determines competitive success.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis of how convex or concave drift rate profiles affect species competition outcomes in a patchy environment.

Findings

Convex drift rates favor the species with higher diffusion.

Concave drift rates favor the species with lower diffusion.

Drift rate shape critically influences competition results.

Abstract

In this paper, we study a two stream species Lotka-Volterra competition patch model with the patches aligned along a line. The two species are supposed to be identical except for the diffusion rates. For each species, the diffusion rates between patches are the same, while the drift rates vary. Our results show that the convexity of the drift rates has a significant impact on the competition outcomes: if the drift rates are convex, then the species with larger diffusion rate wins the competition; if the drift rates are concave, then the species with smaller diffusion rate wins the competition.