SKM 2023 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help

SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme

SOE 16: Collective Dynamics in Animal and Human Societies

SOE 16.4: Talk

Thursday, March 30, 2023, 11:45–12:00, ZEU 260

Population waves in sessile organisms — •Niraj Kushwaha and Edward Lee — Complexity Science Hub Vienna, Josefstädter Straße 39, 1080 Vienna, Austria

The mathematical laws of life manifest scaling regularities such as the relationship between mass and metabolism for the smallest to the largest organisms on Earth. These laws lack essential components representing interaction between organisms while sharing limited resources. Once accounted for, these components can bring significant variation to the predicted demographic laws using just metabolic scaling theory and can give mathematical descriptions for observed ecological phenomena. The oscillations in population number, where spikes in the number of organisms of a specific size propagate from small to large organisms is an example of such a phenomena. Here, we incorporate spatial competition and resource variation in a differential equation model for the population dynamics of sessile organisms. We use analytic and numerical tools to solve the corresponding equations and to characterize the form of instabilities that generate the oscillations, which we use to identify hidden mechanisms that may drive instabilities in ecological systems such as forests. As a result, we may be able to identify the most significant factors that affect the stability of an ecosystem corresponding to resource fluctuations that may become more prominent with climate change.