The role of Allee effects for Gaussian and Lévy dispersals in an environmental niche.

Abstract

In the study of biological populations, the Allee effect detects a critical density below which the population is severely endangered and at risk of extinction. This effect supersedes the classical logistic model, in which low densities are favorable due to lack of competition, and includes situations related to deficit of genetic pools, inbreeding depression, mate limitations, unavailability of collaborative strategies due to lack of conspecifics, etc. The goal of this paper is to provide a detailed mathematical analysis of the Allee effect. After recalling the ordinary differential equation related to the Allee effect, we will consider the situation of a diffusive population. The dispersal of this population is quite general and can include the classical Brownian motion, as well as a Lévy flight pattern, and also a "mixed" situation in which some individuals perform classical random walks and others adopt Lévy flights (which is also a case observed in nature). We study the existence and nonexistence of stationary solutions, which are an indication of the survival chance of a population at the equilibrium. We also analyze the associated evolution problem, in view of monotonicity in time of the total population, energy consideration, and long-time asymptotics. Furthermore, we also consider the case of an "inverse" Allee effect, in which low density populations may access additional benefits.