Publikationsrepositorium - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf

A large body of existing ecological theory relies on very strong and unrealistic assumptions about the way individuals move and get to interact with each other and with the environment. Specifically, several models assume that individuals behave like the molecules of an ideal gas: following completely random trajectories through the entire area occupied by the population and only interacting with each other when their trajectories intersect.

In this presentation, I will first discuss how traditional population dynamics models emerge from ideal gas assumptions. Then, I will present our ongoing research to refine those models using more elaborated tools from random walk theory, spatially-extended nonlinear dynamical systems, and stochastic calculus. I will discuss examples covering both the development of new theory and its application ecological data.