Evolution of dispersal in advective patchy environments with varying drift rates

Abstract

In this paper, we study a two stream species Lotka-Volterra competition patch model with the patches aligned along a line. The two species are supposed to be identical except for the diffusion rates. For each species, the diffusion rates between patches are the same, while the drift rates vary. Our results show that the convexity of the drift rates has a significant impact on the competition outcomes: if the drift rates are convex, then the species with larger diffusion rate wins the competition; if the drift rates are concave, then the species with smaller diffusion rate wins the competition.