English

Phase diagram for a logistic system under bounded stochasticity

Populations and Evolution 2019-03-27 v2

Abstract

Extinction is the ultimate absorbing state of any stochastic birth-death process, hence the time to extinction is an important characteristic of any natural population. Here we consider logistic and logistic-like systems under the combined effect of demographic and bounded environmental stochasticity. Three phases are identified: an inactive phase where the mean time to extinction TT increases logarithmically with the initial population size, an active phase where TT grows exponentially with the carrying capacity NN, and temporal Griffiths phase, with power-law relationship between TT and NN. The system supports an exponential phase only when the noise is bounded, in which case the continuum (diffusion) approximation breaks down within the Griffiths phase. This breakdown is associated with a crossover between qualitatively different survival statistics and decline modes. To study the power-law phase we present a new WKB scheme which is applicable both in the diffusive and in the non-diffusive regime.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1810.03317,
  title  = {Phase diagram for a logistic system under bounded stochasticity},
  author = {Yitzhak Yahalom and Nadav M. Shnerb},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1810.03317},
  year   = {2019}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T04:31:43.091Z