Related papers: WKB versus generalized van Kampen system-size expa…
We are interested in populations in which the fitness of different genetic types fluctuates in time and space, driven by temporal and spatial fluctuations in the environment. For simplicity, our population is assumed to be composed of just…
We study a general class of birth-and-death processes with state space $\mathbb{N}$ that describes the size of a population going to extinction with probability one. This class contains the logistic case. The scale of the population is…
A diffusive system coupled to unequal boundary reservoirs reaches a non-equilibrium steady state. While the full-counting-statistics of current fluctuations in these states are well understood for generic systems, results for steady-state…
A stochastic theory for the toppling activity in sandpile models is developed, based on a simple mean-field assumption about the toppling process. The theory describes the process as an anti-persistent Gaussian walk, where the diffusion…
Stochastic reaction-diffusion equations are a popular modelling approach for studying interacting populations in a heterogeneous environment under the influence of environmental fluctuations. Although the theoretical basis of alternative…
Many types of bacteria can survive under stress by switching stochastically between two different phenotypes: the "normals" who multiply fast, but are vulnerable to stress, and the "persisters" who hardly multiply, but are resilient to…
A fundamental problem in the fields of population genetics, evolution, and community ecology, is the fate of a single mutant, or invader, introduced in a finite population of wild types. For a fixed-size community of $N$ individuals, with…
We consider a stochastic version of the Wilson-Cowan model which accommodates for discrete populations of excitatory and inhibitory neurons. The model assumes a finite carrying capacity with the two populations being constant in size. The…
This chapter provides a pedagogical introduction and overview of spatial and temporal correlation and fluctuation effects resulting from the fundamentally stochastic kinetics underlying chemical reactions and the dynamics of populations or…
Dispersal is an important strategy that allows organisms to locate and exploit favorable habitats. The question arises: given competition in a spatially heterogeneous landscape, what is the optimal rate of dispersal? Continuous population…
The influence of dissipation on the fluctuation statistics of the total energy is investigated through both a phenomenological and a stochastic model for dissipative energy-transfer through a cascade of states. In equilibrium the states…
In the long run, the eventual extinction of any biological population is an inevitable outcome. While extensive research has focused on the average time it takes for a population to go extinct under various circumstances, there has been…
The dynamics of species' densities depend both on internal and external variables. Internal variables include frequencies of individuals exhibiting different phenotypes or living in different spatial locations. External variables include…
A reduced chemical scheme involving a small number of variables is often sufficient to account for the deterministic evolution of the concentrations of the main species contributing to a reaction. However its predictions are questionable in…
We investigate how a catastrophic event (modeled as a temporary fall of the reproduction rate) increases the extinction probability of an isolated self-regulated stochastic population. Using a variant of the Verhulst logistic model as an…
Highly-diverse ecosystems exhibit a broad distribution of population sizes and species turnover, where species at high and low abundances are exchanged over time. We show that these two features generically emerge in the fluctuating phase…
Stochastic versions of a classical model for natural ventilation are proposed and investigated to demonstrate the effect of random fluctuations on stability and predictability. In a stochastic context, the well-known deterministic result…
We study the evolution leading to (or regressing from) a large fluctuation in a Statistical Mechanical system. We introduce and study analytically a simple model of many identically and independently distributed microscopic variables $n_m$…
Stochastic processes play a key role for modeling a huge variety of transport problems out of equilibrium, with manifold applications throughout the natural and social sciences. To formulate models of stochastic dynamics the conventional…
The extinction of species is a core process that affects the diversity of life on Earth. One way of investigating the causes and consequences of extinctions is to build conceptual ecological models, and to use the dynamical outcomes of such…