Mathematical Models For Animal Population Dynamics

Abstract

Researchers have always been interested in systems consisting of multiple autonomous agents. Many systems are inspired from the observation of animals that move from one area to another or a system where the species living in a certain ecosystem have some form of relationship, either the prey-predator, cooperation or competition relationship. In this article, a literature survey of some of the methodologies employed by researchers to population dynamics modeling is discussed. Suitable application with respect to the mathematical models is also reported. This work seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the ecological dynamics of ecosystems using mathematical models. It demonstrates the need to investigate the nature of the animal populations for one to precisely model the population dynamics. This study shows that different models could be used in different situations employing difference equations, ordinary differential equations and Markov Chains. Movements and population dynamics of some species are used for illustrations. Aggregation methods are used to reduce the complexity of the model, which uses actual parameters. These suggested models make the population dynamic modeling more realistic by capturing essential features of the growth process.