The impact of diffusion and stirring on the dynamics of interacting populations

We investigate the combined effects of diffusion and stirring on the dynamics of interacting populations which have spatial structure. Specifically we consider the marine phytoplankton and zooplankton populations, and model them as an excitable medium. The results are applicable to other biological and chemical systems. Under certain conditions the combination of diffusion and stirring is found to enhance the excitability, and hence population growth of the system. Diffusion is found to play an important role: too much and initial perturbations are smoothed away, too little and insufficient mixing takes place before the reaction is over. A key time-scale is the mix-down time, the time it takes for the spatial scale of a population to be reduced to that of a diffusively controlled filament. If the mix-down time is short compared to the reaction time-scale, then excitation of the system is suppressed. For intermediate values of the mix-down time the peak population can attain values many times that of a population without spatial structure. We highlight the importance of the spatial scale of the initial disturbance to the system.