Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 204, 57-73 (2012)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2012-01552-0

Regular Article

Population dynamics in compressible flows

¹ Dip. di Fisica and INFN, Università “Tor Vergata”, via della Ricerca Scientifica 1, 00133 Roma, Italy
² The Niels Bohr Institut, Blegdamsvej 17, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
³ Lyman Laboratory of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
⁴ Department of Physics, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, and J.M. Burgerscentrum, Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands and International Collaboration for Turbulence Research
⁵ Dept. de Fisica i Eng. Nuclear, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya Edif. GAIA, Rambla Sant Nebridi s/n, 08222 Terrassa, Barcelona, Spain

Received: 23 December 2011
Revised: 22 February 2012
Published online: 17 April 2012

Abstract

Organisms often grow, migrate and compete in liquid environments, as well as on solid surfaces. However, relatively little is known about what happens when competing species are mixed and compressed by fluid turbulence. In these lectures we review our recent work on population dynamics and population genetics in compressible velocity fields of one and two dimensions. We discuss why compressible turbulence is relevant for population dynamics in the ocean and we consider cases both where the velocity field is turbulent and when it is static. Furthermore, we investigate populations in terms of a continuos density field and when the populations are treated via discrete particles. In the last case we focus on the competition and fixation of one species compared to another.