All issues

The article focuses on a nonlinear mathematical model that describes the interaction of the different age groups of the employed population. The interactions are treated by analogy with population relationship (competition, discrimination, assistance, oppression, etc). Under interaction of peoples we mean the generalized social and economic mechanisms that cause related changes in the number of employees of different age groups. Three age groups of the employed population are considered. It is young specialists (15–29 years), workers with experience (30–49 years), the employees of pre-retirement and retirement age (50 and older). The estimation of model’s parameters for the southern regions of the Far Eastern Federal District (FEFD) is executed by statistical data. Analysis of model scenarios allows us to conclude the observed number fluctuations of the different ages employees on the background of a stable total employed population may be a consequence of complex interactions between these groups of peoples. Computational experiments with the obtained values of the parameters allowed us to calculate the rate of decline and the aging of the working population and to determine the nature of the interaction between the age groups of employees that are not directly as reflected in the statistics. It was found that in FEFD the employed of 50 years and older are discriminated against by the young workers under 29, employed up to 29 and 30–49 years are in a partnership. It is shown in most developed regions (Primorsky and Khabarovsk Krai) there is “uniform” competition among different age groups of the employed population. For Primorsky Krai we were able to identify the mixing effect dynamics. It is a typical situation for systems in a state of structural adjustment. This effect is reflected in the fact the long cycles of employed population form with a significant decrease in migration inflows of employees 30–49 years. Besides, the change of migration is accompanied by a change of interaction type — from employment discrimination by the oldest of middle generation to discrimination by the middle of older generation. In less developed regions (Amur, Magadan and Jewish Autonomous Regions) there are lower values of migration balance of almost all age groups and discrimination by young workers up 29 years of other age groups and employment discrimination 30–49 years of the older generation.

We study the influence of fishery on a structured fish population under random changes of habitat conditions. The population parameters correspond to dominant pelagic fish species of Far-Eastern seas of the northwestern part of the Pacific Ocean (pollack, herring, sardine). Similar species inhabit various parts of the Word Ocean. The species body size distribution was chosen as a main population feature. This characteristic is easy to measure and adequately defines main specimen qualities such as age, maturity and other morphological and physiological peculiarities. Environmental fluctuations have a great influence on the individuals in early stages of development and have little influence on the vital activity of mature individuals. The fishery revenue was chosen as an optimality criterion. The main control characteristic is fishing effort. We have chosen quadratic dependence of fishing revenue on the fishing effort according to accepted economic ideas stating that the expenses grow with the production volume. The model study shows that the population structure ensures the increased population stability. The growth and drop out of the individuals’ due to natural mortality smoothens the oscillations of population density arising from the strong influence of the fluctuations of environment on young individuals. The smoothing part is played by diffusion component of the growth processes. The fishery in its turn smooths the fluctuations (including random fluctuations) of the environment and has a substantial impact upon the abundance of fry and the subsequent population dynamics. The optimal time-dependent fishing effort strategy was compared to stationary fishing effort strategy. It is shown that in the case of quickly changing habitat conditions and stochastic dynamics of population replenishment there exists a stationary fishing effort having approximately the same efficiency as an optimal time-dependent fishing effort. This means that a constant or weakly varying fishing effort can be very efficient strategy in terms of revenue.

We analyze variants of considering the inhomogeneity of the environment in computer modeling of the dynamics of a predator and prey based on a system of reaction-diffusion–advection equations. The local interaction of species (reaction terms) is described by the logistic law for the prey and the Beddington –DeAngelis functional response, special cases of which are the Holling type II functional response and the Arditi – Ginzburg model. We consider a one-dimensional problem in space for a heterogeneous resource (carrying capacity) and three types of taxis (the prey to resource and from the predator, the predator to the prey). An analytical approach is used to study the stability of stationary solutions in the case of local interaction (diffusionless approach). We employ the method of lines to study diffusion and advective processes. A comparison of the critical values of the mortality parameter of predators is given. Analysis showed that at constant coefficients in the Beddington –DeAngelis model, critical values are variable along the spatial coordinate, while we do not observe this effect for the Arditi –Ginzburg model. We propose a modification of the reaction terms, which makes it possible to take into account the heterogeneity of the resource. Numerical results on the dynamics of species for large and small migration coefficients are presented, demonstrating a decrease in the influence of the species of local members on the emerging spatio-temporal distributions of populations. Bifurcation transitions are analyzed when changing the parameters of diffusion–advection and reaction terms.

We consider one of the problems of transport modelling — searching the equilibrium distribution of traffic flows in the network. We use the classic Beckman’s model to describe time costs and flow distribution in the network represented by directed graph. Meanwhile agents’ behavior is not completely rational, what is described by the introduction of Markov logit dynamics: any driver selects a route randomly according to the Gibbs’ distribution taking into account current time costs on the edges of the graph. Thus, the problem is reduced to searching of the stationary distribution for this dynamics which is a stochastic Nash – Wardrope equilibrium in the corresponding population congestion game in the transport network. Since the game is potential, this problem is equivalent to the problem of minimization of some functional over flows distribution. The stochasticity is reflected in the appearance of the entropy regularization, in contrast to non-stochastic case. The dual problem is constructed to obtain a solution of the optimization problem. The universal primal-dual gradient method is applied. A major specificity of this method lies in an adaptive adjustment to the local smoothness of the problem, what is most important in case of the complex structure of the objective function and an inability to obtain a prior smoothness bound with acceptable accuracy. Such a situation occurs in the considered problem since the properties of the function strongly depend on the transport graph, on which we do not impose strong restrictions. The article describes the algorithm including the numerical differentiation for calculation of the objective function value and gradient. In addition, the paper represents a theoretical estimate of time complexity of the algorithm and the results of numerical experiments conducted on a small American town.

A new discrete ecological-evolutionary mathematical model is presented, in which the search mechanisms for evolutionarily stable migration routes of fish populations are implemented. The proposed adaptive designs have a small dimension, and therefore have high speed. This allows carrying out calculations on long-term perspective for an acceptable machine time. Both geometric approaches of nonlinear analysis and computer “asymptotic” methods were used in the study of stability. The migration dynamics of the fish population is described by a certain Markov matrix, which can change during evolution. The “basis” matrices are selected in the family of Markov matrices (of fixed dimension), which are used to generate migration routes of mutant. A promising direction of the evolution of the spatial behavior of fish is revealed for a given fishery and food supply, as a result of competition of the initial population with mutants. This model was applied to solve the problem of optimal catch for the long term, provided that the reservoir is divided into two parts, each of which has its own owner. Dynamic programming is used, based on the construction of the Bellman function, when solving optimization problems. A paradoxical strategy of “luring” was discovered, when one of the participants in the fishery temporarily reduces the catch in its water area. In this case, the migrating fish spends more time in this area (on condition of equal food supply). This route is evolutionarily fixes and does not change even after the resumption of fishing in the area. The second participant in the fishery can restore the status quo by applying “luring” to its part of the water area. Endless sequence of “luring” arises as a kind of game “giveaway”. A new effective concept has been introduced — the internal price of the fish population, depending on the zone of the reservoir. In fact, these prices are Bellman's private derivatives, and can be used as a tax on caught fish. In this case, the problem of long-term fishing is reduced to solving the problem of one-year optimization.

Bistability is a fundamental property of nonlinear systems and is found in many applied and theoretical studies of biological systems (populations and communities). In the simplest case it is expressed in the coexistence of diametrically opposed alternative stable equilibrium states of the system, and which of them will be achieved depends on the initial conditions. Bistability in simple models can lead to quad-stability as models become more complex, for example, when adding genetic, age and spatial structure. This occurs in different models from completely different subject area and leads to very interesting, often counterintuitive conclusions. In this article, we review such situations. The paper deals with bifurcations leading to bi- and quad-stability in mathematical models of the following biological objects. The first one is the system of two populations coupled by migration and under the action of natural selection, in which all genetic diversity is associated with a single diallelic locus with a significant difference in fitness for homo- and heterozygotes. The second is the system of two limited populations described by the Bazykin model or the Ricker model and coupled by migration. The third is a population with two age stages and density-dependent regulation of birth rate which is determined either only by population density, or additionally depends on the genetic structure of adjacent generations. We found that all these models have similar scenarios for the birth of equilibrium states that correspond to the formation of spatiotemporal inhomogeneity or to the differentiation by phenotypes of individuals from different age stages. Such inhomogeneity is a consequence of local bistability and appears as a result of a combination of pitchfork bifurcation (period doubling) and saddle-node bifurcation.

Crow–Kimura model is one of the famous models of population genetics. Last decade models with low-dimensional fitness landscape have been investigated. We consider the Crow–Kimura model of evolutionary dynamics on multi-dimensional fitness landscape with a single peak. We deduce exact solution for the dynamics, confirmed well by the numerics.

A computer model describing the spatial-temporal dynamics of populations of interacting with renewable resource is proposed. The life cycle of the individual is described. The algorithm for spatial mobility of individuals within an area is proposed, which takes into account nutritional and social activity. The paper presents the computational experiments with the model that mimic the movement of herds of animals in the area, and describes the model experiment when the group type of animal behavior due to changes in the characteristics of the environment and animal behavior the herd animals is formed, which later goes again in the group type of animal behavior.

The paper investigates the features of group dynamics of individuals-agents in the computer model of the animal population interacting with each other and with a renewable resource. This type of dynamics was previously found in [Belotelov, Konovalenko, 2016]. The model population consists of a set of individuals. Each individual is characterized by its mass, which is identified with energy. It describes in detail the dynamics of the energy balance of the individual. The habitat of the simulated population is a rectangular area where the resource grows evenly (grass).

Various computer experiments carried out with the model under different parameter values and initial conditions are described. The main purpose of these computational experiments was to study the group (herd) dynamics of individuals. It was found that in a fairly wide range of parameter values and with the introduction of spatial inhomogeneities of the area, the group type of behavior is preserved. The values of the model population parameters under which the regime of spatial oscillations of the population occurs were found numerically. Namely, in the model population periodically group (herd) behavior of animals is replaced by a uniform distribution over space, which after a certain number of bars again becomes a group. Numerical experiments on the preliminary analysis of the factors influencing the period of these solutions are carried out. It turned out that the leading parameters affecting the frequency and amplitude, as well as the number of groups are the mobility of individuals and the rate of recovery of the resource. Numerical experiments are carried out to study the influence of parameters determining the nonlocal interaction between individuals of the population on the group behavior. It was found that the modes of group behavior persist for a long time with the exclusion of fertility factors of individuals. It is confirmed that the nonlocality of interaction between individuals is leading in the formation of group behavior.

The review and systematization of current papers on the mathematical modeling of population dynamics allow us to conclude the key interests of authors are two or three main research lines related to the description and analysis of the dynamics of both local structured populations and systems of interacting homogeneous populations as ecological community in physical space. The paper reviews and systematizes scientific studies and results obtained within the framework of dynamics of structured and interacting populations to date. The paper describes the scientific idea progress in the direction of complicating models from the classical Malthus model to the modern models with various factors affecting population dynamics in the issues dealing with modeling the local population size dynamics. In particular, they consider the dynamic effects that arise as a result of taking into account the environmental capacity, density-dependent regulation, the Allee effect, complexity of an age and a stage structures. Particular attention is paid to the multistability of population dynamics. In addition, studies analyzing harvest effect on structured population dynamics and an appearance of the hydra effect are presented. The studies dealing with an appearance and development of spatial dissipative structures in both spatially separated populations and communities with migrations are discussed. Here, special attention is also paid to the frequency and phase multistability of population dynamics, as well as to an appearance of spatial clusters. During the systematization and review of articles on modeling the interacting population dynamics, the focus is on the “prey–predator” community. The key idea and approaches used in current mathematical biology to model a “prey–predator” system with community structure and harvesting are presented. The problems of an appearance and stability of the mosaic structure in communities distributed spatially and coupled by migration are also briefly discussed.