Search results for "Allee effect"
showing 3 items of 13 documents
Analysis of ecological shifts in the two‐age structured population model with Allee effect and environmental noise
2020
We study noise-induced transformations in the two-age structured population model with the Allee effect and environmental fluctuations. In this bistable model, ecological shifts are associated mathematically with random transitions between basins of coexisting attractors. The following phenomena are revealed and studied: (i) noise-induced extinction, (ii) stochastic regeneration, and (iii) excitement of random mixed-mode oscillations. Constructive abilities of the analytical method of confidence domains are demonstrated in the parametric study of these phenomena.
The effect of inbreeding rate on fitness, inbreeding depression and heterosis over a range of inbreeding coefficients
2014
Understanding the effects of inbreeding and genetic drift within populations and hybridization between genetically differentiated populations is important for many basic and applied questions in ecology and evolutionary biology. The magnitudes and even the directions of these effects can be influenced by various factors, especially by the current and historical population size (i.e. inbreeding rate). Using Drosophila littoralis as a model species, we studied the effect of inbreeding rate over a range of inbreeding levels on (i) mean fitness of a population (relative to that of an outbred control population), (ii) within‐population inbreeding depression (reduction in fitness of offspring fro…
Modelling the evolution of periodicity in the periodical cicadas
2018
Background: Periodical cicadas (Magicicada spp.) have a life cycle that ends with the entire underground nymph population exhibiting a synchronized mass emergence to mate above ground. Previous studies have hypothesized that the periodical cicadas evolved from non-periodical cicadas by switching from a life-cycle length determined by body size to one determined by age. Questions: When can a mutation coding for fixed life-cycle length invade a resident population in which life-cycle length is variable? What determines the length of the fixed cycle? Methods: Numerical analysis of a mathematical model and simulations of an individual-based model. Results: If there is a sufficiently strong pred…