Abstract:
Spatial structure has been shown to play an important role in the ecology of different modes of interaction, such as predation or competition. However, most studies focus on micrometer-sized structures such as the impact of bacterial colony formation upon predation by (bacterio)phages. We here present a numerical investigation of the ecological impact of the atmosphere on these modes from a population dynamics approach combined with a simple lattice model of the atmosphere. In our model, advection, molecular diffusion and aerosolization and deposition fluxes are combined with system-specific interactions (that from a bacteria-phage predator system) to suggest their possible role in patterning formation and steady-state population densities. Preliminary results point towards a discrepancy from the mean-field approximation, and to advection as the driver of spatial structure in population density.