arXiv subjects

Denis D. Patterson

Publications and source records attributed to Denis D. Patterson.

16 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Towards a unified framework for multiple stable states in ecological systems

Multiple stable states - the coexistence of two or more distinct ecological configurations under identical environmental conditions - have attracted sustained interest in ecology, yet the field still lacks a unified framework connecting ecological mechanisms to dynamical models. Here, we review empirical and theoretical approaches to multiple stable states, synthesising perspectives on stability, tipping, hysteresis, and transient dynamics, and contextualise these within a common mathematical framework. Drawing on examples of well-known ecosystem models, we highlight the central and necessary role of positive feedback loops and identify other common, unifying features of ecological systems that exhibit multiple stable states. We further discuss the relationship between stable and transient dynamics, the roles of spatial and temporal scales in feedback identification, and the implications for ecological restoration and management. We conclude with open questions and challenges for the field, including extending multistability theory to persistent-transient frameworks and harnessing emerging data-collection technologies to sharpen empirical inference.

q-bio.PE↗

arXiv2025

Spatial modeling of forest-savanna bistability: Impacts of fire dynamics and timescale separation

Forest-savanna bistability - the hypothesis that forests and savannas exist as alternative stable states in the tropics - and its implications are key challenges for mathematical modelers and ecologists in the context of ongoing climate change. To generate new insights into this problem, we present a spatial Markov jump process model of savanna forest fires that integrates key ecological processes, including seed dispersal, fire spread, and non-linear vegetation flammability. In contrast to many models of forest-savanna bistability, we explicitly model both fire dynamics and vegetation regrowth in a mathematically tractable framework. This approach bridges the gap between slow-timescale vegetation models and highly resolved fire dynamics, shedding light on the influence of short-term and transient processes on vegetation cover. In our spatial stochastic model, bistability arises from periodic fires that maintain low forest cover, whereas dense forest areas inhibit fire spread and preserve high tree density. The deterministic mean-field approximation of the model similarly predicts bistability, but deviates quantitatively from the fully spatial model, especially in terms of its transient dynamics. These results also underscore the critical role of timescale separation between fire and vegetation processes in shaping ecosystem structure and resilience.

q-bio.PE↗

arXiv2023

Pattern Formation in Mesic Savannas

We analyze a spatially extended version of a well-known model of forest-savanna dynamics, which presents as a system of nonlinear partial integro-differential equations, and study necessary conditions for pattern-forming bifurcations. Analytically, we show that homogeneous solutions dominate the dynamics of the standard forest-savanna model, regardless of the length scales of the various spatial processes considered. However, several different pattern-forming scenarios are possible upon including spatial resource limitation, such as competition for water, soil nutrients, or herbivory effects. Using numerical simulations and continuation, we study the nature of the resulting patterns as a function of system parameters and length scales, uncovering subcritical pattern-forming bifurcations and observing significant regions of multistability for realistic parameter regimes. Finally, we discuss our results in the context of extant savanna-forest modeling efforts and highlight ongoing challenges in building a unifying mathematical model for savannas across different rainfall levels.

nlin.PS↗

arXiv2023

Spatial Dynamics with Heterogeneity

Spatial systems with heterogeneities are ubiquitous in nature, from precipitation, temperature and soil gradients controlling vegetation growth to morphogen gradients controlling gene expression in embryos. Such systems, generally described by nonlinear dynamical systems, often display complex parameter dependence and exhibit bifurcations. The dynamics of heterogeneous spatially extended systems passing through bifurcations are still relatively poorly understood, yet recent theoretical studies and experimental data highlight the resulting complex behaviors and their relevance to real-world applications. We explore the consequences of spatial heterogeneities passing through bifurcations via two examples strongly motivated by applications. These model systems illustrate that studying heterogeneity-induced behaviors in spatial systems is crucial for a better understanding of ecological transitions and functional organization in brain development.

math.DS↗

arXiv2021

Probabilistic Foundations of Spatial Mean-field Models in Ecology and Applications

Deterministic models of vegetation often summarize, at a macroscopic scale, a multitude of intrinsically random events occurring at a microscopic scale. We bridge the gap between these scales by demonstrating convergence to a mean-field limit for a general class of stochastic models representing each individual ecological event in the limit of large system size. The proof relies on classical stochastic coupling techniques that we generalize to cover spatially extended interactions. The mean-field limit is a spatially extended non-Markovian process characterized by nonlocal integro-differential equations describing the evolution of the probability for a patch of land to be in a given state (the generalized Kolmogorov equations of the process, GKEs). We thus provide an accessible general framework for spatially extending many classical finite-state models from ecology and population dynamics. We demonstrate the practical effectiveness of our approach through a detailed comparison of our limiting spatial model and the finite-size version of a specific savanna-forest model, the so-called Staver-Levin model. There is remarkable dynamic consistency between the GKEs and the finite-size system, in spite of almost sure forest extinction in the finite-size system. To resolve this apparent paradox, we show that the extinction rate drops sharply when nontrivial equilibria emerge in the GKEs, and that the finite-size system's quasi-stationary distribution (stationary distribution conditional on non-extinction) closely matches the bifurcation diagram of the GKEs. Furthermore, the limit process can support periodic oscillations of the probability distribution, thus providing an elementary example of a jump process that does not converge to a stationary distribution. In spatially extended settings, environmental heterogeneity can lead to waves of invasion and front-pinning phenomena.

math.DS↗

arXiv2020

Growth and fluctuation in perturbed nonlinear Volterra equations

We develop precise bounds on the growth rates and fluctuation sizes of unbounded solutions of deterministic and stochastic nonlinear Volterra equations perturbed by external forces. The equation is sublinear for large values of the state, in the sense that the state--dependence is negligible relative to linear functions. If an appropriate functional of the forcing term has a limit $L$ at infinity, the solution of the differential equation behaves asymptotically like the underlying unforced equation when $L=0$, like the forcing term when $L=+\infty$, and inherits properties of both the forcing term and underlying differential equation for values of $L\in (0,\infty)$. Our approach carries over in a natural way to stochastic equations with additive noise and we treat the illustrative cases of Brownian and Lévy noise.

math.CA↗

arXiv2017

Blow-up and superexponential growth in superlinear Volterra equations

This paper concerns the finite-time blow-up and asymptotic behaviour of solutions to nonlinear Volterra integrodifferential equations. Our main contribution is to determine sharp estimates on the growth rates of both explosive and nonexplosive solutions for a class of equations with nonsingular kernels under weak hypotheses on the nonlinearity. In this superlinear setting we must be content with estimates of the form $\lim_{t\toτ}A(x(t),t) = 1$, where $τ$ is the blow-up time if solutions are explosive or $τ= \infty$ if solutions are global. Our estimates improve on the sharpness of results in the literature and we also recover well-known blow-up criteria via new methods.

math.CA↗

arXiv2017

Growth Rates of Solutions of Superlinear Ordinary Differential Equations

In this letter we obtain sharp estimates on the growth rate of solutions to a nonlinear ODE with a nonautonomous forcing term. The equation is superlinear in the state variable and hence solutions exhibit rapid growth and finite-time blow-up. The importance of ODEs of the type considered here stems from the key role they play in understanding the asymptotic behaviour of more complex systems involving delay and randomness.

math.CA↗

arXiv2016

Hartman-Wintner growth results for sublinear functional differential equations

In this paper, we determine rates of growth to infinity of scalar autonomous nonlinear functional and Volterra differential equations. In these equations, the right-hand side is a positive continuous linear functional of a nonlinear function of the state. We assume the nonlinearity grows sublinearly at infinity, leading to subexponential growth in the solutions. Our main results show that the solutions of the functional differential equations are asymptotic to those of an auxiliary autonomous ordinary differential equation when the nonlinearity grows more slowly than a critical rate. If the nonlinearity grows more rapidly than this rate, the ODE dominates the FDE. If the nonlinearity tends to infinity at exactly this rate, the FDE and ODE grow at the same rate, modulo a constant non-unit factor. Finally, if the nonlinearity grows more slowly than the critical rate, then the ODE and FDE grow at the same rate asymptotically. We also prove a partial converse of the last result. In the case when the growth rate is slower than that of the ODE, we calculate sharp bounds on the solutions.

math.CA↗

arXiv2016

Large fluctuations and growth rates of linear Volterra summation equations

This paper concerns the asymptotic behaviour of solutions of a linear convolution Volterra summation equation with an unbounded forcing term. In particular, we suppose the kernel is summable and ascribe growth bounds to the exogenous perturbation. If the forcing term grows at a geometric rate asymptotically or is bounded by a geometric sequence, then the solution (appropriately scaled) omits a convenient asymptotic representation. Moreover, this representation is used to show that additional growth properties of the perturbation are preserved in the solution. If the forcing term fluctuates asymptotically, we prove that fluctuations of the same magnitude will be present in the solution and we also connect the finiteness of time averages of the solution with those of the perturbation. Our results, and corollaries thereof, apply to stochastic as well as deterministic equations, and we demonstrate this by studying some representative classes of examples. Finally, we show that our theory can be extended to cover a class of nonlinear equations via a straightforward linearisation argument.

math.DS↗

arXiv2016

Classification of convergence rates of solutions of perturbed ordinary differential equations with regularly varying nonlinearity

In this paper we consider the rate of convergence of solutions of a scalar ordinary differential equation which is a perturbed version of an autonomous equation with a globally stable equilibrium. Under weak assumptions on the nonlinear mean reverting force, we demonstrate that the convergence rate is preserved when the perturbation decays more rapidly than a critical rate. At the critical rate, the convergence to equilibrium is slightly slower than the unperturbed equation, and when the perturbation decays more slowly than the critical rate, the convergence to equilibrium is strictly slower than that seen in the unperturbed equation. In the last case, under strengthened assumptions, a new convergence rate is recorded which depends on the convergence rate of the perturbation. The latter result relies on the function being regularly varying at the equilibrium with index greater than unity; therefore, for this class of regularly varying problems, a classification of the convergence rates is obtained.

math.CA↗

arXiv2016

On the admissibility of unboundedness properties of forced deterministic and stochastic sublinear Volterra summation equations

In this paper we consider unbounded solutions of perturbed convolution Volterra summation equations. The equations studied are asymptotically sublinear, in the sense that the state--dependence in the summation is of smaller than linear order for large absolute values of the state. When the perturbation term is unbounded, it is elementary to show that solutions are also. The main results of the paper are mostly of the following form: the solution has an additional unboundedness property $U$ if and only if the perturbation has property $U$. Examples of property $U$ include monotone growth, monotone growth with fluctuation, fluctuation on $\mathbb{R}$ without growth, existence of time averages. We also study the connection between the times at which the perturbation and solution reach their running maximum, and the connection between the size of signed and unsigned running maxima of the solution and forcing term.

math.DS↗

arXiv2016

Growth Rates of Sublinear Functional and Volterra Differential Equations

This paper considers the growth rates of positive solutions of scalar nonlinear functional and Volterra differential equations. The equations are assumed to be autonomous (or asymptotically so), and the nonlinear dependence grows less rapidly than any linear function. We impose extra regularity properties on a function asymptotic to this nonlinear function, rather than on the nonlinearity itself. The main result of the paper demonstrates that the growth rate of the solution can be found by determining the rate of growth of a trivial functional differential equation (FDE) with the same nonlinearity and all its associated measure concentrated at zero; the trivial FDE is nothing other than an autonomous nonlinear ODE. We also supply direct asymptotic information about the solution of the FDE under additional conditions on the nonlinearity, and exploit the theory of regular variation to sharpen and extend the results.

math.CA↗

arXiv2016

Memory Dependent Growth in Sublinear Volterra Differential Equations

We investigate memory dependent asymptotic growth in scalar Volterra equations with sublinear nonlinearity. To obtain precise results we utilise the powerful theory of regular variation extensively. By computing the growth rate in terms of a related ordinary differential equation we show that when the memory effect is so strong that the kernel tends to infinity, the growth rate of solutions depends explicitly on the memory of the system. Finally, we employ a fixed point argument to determine analogous results for a perturbed Volterra equation and show that, for a sufficiently large perturbation, the solution tracks the perturbation asymptotically, even when the forcing term is potentially highly non-monotone.

math.CA↗

arXiv2014

Subexponential Growth Rates in Functional Differential Equations

This paper determines the rate of growth to infinity of a scalar autonomous nonlinear functional differential equation with finite delay, where the right hand side is a positive continuous linear functional of $f(x)$. We assume $f$ grows sublinearly, and is such that solutions should exhibit growth faster than polynomial, but slower than exponential. Under some technical conditions on $f$, it is shown that the solution of the functional differential equation is asymptotic to that of an auxiliary autonomous ordinary differential equation with righthand side proportional to $f$ (with the constant of proportionality equal to the mass of the finite measure associated with the linear functional), provided $f$ grows more slowly than $l(x)=x/\log x$. This linear--logarithmic growth rate is also shown to be critical: if $f$ grows more rapidly than $l$, the ODE dominates the FDE; if $f$ is asymptotic to a constant multiple of $l$, the FDE and ODE grow at the same rate, modulo a constant non--unit factor.

math.CA↗

arXiv2014

On Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Preserving Convergence Rates to Equilibrium in Deterministically and Stochastically Perturbed Differential Equations with Regularly Varying Nonlinearity

This paper develops necessary and sufficient conditions for the preservation of asymptotic convergence rates of deterministically and stochastically perturbed ordinary differential equations with regularly varying nonlinearity close to their equilibrium. Sharp conditions are also established which preserve the asymptotic behaviour of the derivative of the underlying unperturbed equation. Finally, necessary and sufficient conditions are established which enable finite difference approximations to the derivative in the stochastic equation to preserve the asymptotic behaviour of the derivative of the unperturbed equation, even though the solution of the stochastic equation is nowhere differentiable, almost surely.

math.CA↗