Catastrophe-dispersion models in random and varying environments across generations

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: de Lima, Lucas R., Machado, Fábio P.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866911651827023872
author de Lima, Lucas R.
Machado, Fábio P.
author_facet de Lima, Lucas R.
Machado, Fábio P.
contents We study a class of branching processes in which the offspring distribution is not specified directly but is induced by a cycle of internal colony growth, catastrophic reduction and structured dispersal. The parameters governing growth, survival and dispersal are allowed to vary deterministically or randomly from one generation to the next, giving rise to branching processes in varying and random environments with implicitly defined offspring laws. We show that survival and extinction are governed entirely by the associated log-mean process, exactly as in the classical theory. The paper treats four qualitatively different dispersal mechanisms and establishes a universal ordering of the induced offspring means. For Poissonian growth with binomial survival, explicit thresholds are obtained that determine extinction or survival uniformly over all four mechanisms. A series of ecologically motivated examples with Yule-Simon growth illustrates the versatility of the framework.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_04048
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Catastrophe-dispersion models in random and varying environments across generations
de Lima, Lucas R.
Machado, Fábio P.
Probability
Populations and Evolution
60J80, 60K37, 92D25
We study a class of branching processes in which the offspring distribution is not specified directly but is induced by a cycle of internal colony growth, catastrophic reduction and structured dispersal. The parameters governing growth, survival and dispersal are allowed to vary deterministically or randomly from one generation to the next, giving rise to branching processes in varying and random environments with implicitly defined offspring laws. We show that survival and extinction are governed entirely by the associated log-mean process, exactly as in the classical theory. The paper treats four qualitatively different dispersal mechanisms and establishes a universal ordering of the induced offspring means. For Poissonian growth with binomial survival, explicit thresholds are obtained that determine extinction or survival uniformly over all four mechanisms. A series of ecologically motivated examples with Yule-Simon growth illustrates the versatility of the framework.
title Catastrophe-dispersion models in random and varying environments across generations
topic Probability
Populations and Evolution
60J80, 60K37, 92D25
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.04048