Metapopulations and Interacting Particle Systems
Steven Krone
Dept. Mathematics, Unversity of Idaho, Moscow, USA
Abstract
We introduce several interacting particle system models of metapopulation
dynamics. These are stochastic models with an explicit spatial component.
Migration is necessary to counteract the effects of environmental and
demographic extinctions. In the models we study, there is a cost
associated with migration which arises from the increased liklihood of
demographic extinction due to the small size of a founding population
and/or a decrease in size of the colony sending migrants. These models
are motivated by some work of Hanski and Zhang (1993).
