Steady-state dynamics in a two-patch population model with and without Allee effect

Abstract

Most biological populations reside in landscapes that consist of many different patches of different quality. Different species differ in their movement behavior, habitat preference and growth rates. Historically, mathematical models for population dynamics have made many simplifying assumptions, such as a single patch or homogeneous landscapes. Recent models have begun to implement landscape heterogeneity and individual movement characteristics, but many of those are based on logistic growth and linear analysis of the zero state. We consider a two-patch model with more general growth functions that can include Allee effects. We prove the existence of steady states and classify their qualitative behavior. In some special cases, we explicitly calculate their stability and use these results to give conditions for when the system exhibits bistability, i.e., the coexistence of locally stable states. We also study bifurcations with respect to the size of habitat patches and give conditions for forward and backward bifurcations.