English

Applicability of the Fisher Equation to Bacterial Population Dynamics

Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems 2009-11-07 v1 q-bio

Abstract

The applicability of the Fisher equation, which combines diffusion with logistic nonlinearity, to population dynamics of bacterial colonies is studied with the help of explicit analytic solutions for the spatial distribution of a stationary bacterial population under a static mask. The mask protects the bacteria from ultraviolet light. The solution, which is in terms of Jacobian elliptic functions, is used to provide a practical prescription to extract Fisher equation parameters from observations and to decide on the validity of the Fisher equation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.nlin/0210055,
  title  = {Applicability of the Fisher Equation to Bacterial Population Dynamics},
  author = {V. M. Kenkre and M. N. Kuperman},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:nlin/0210055},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

5 pages, 3 figs. included