Modeling the process of speciation using a multi-scale framework including error estimates
This paper concerns the modeling and numerical simulation of the process of speciation. In particular, given conditions for which one or more speciation events within an ecosystem occur, our aim is to develop the necessary modeling and simulation tools. Care is also taken to establish a solid mathematical foundation on which our modeling framework is built. This is the subject of the first half of the paper. The second half is devoted to developing a multi-scale framework for eco-evolutionary modeling, where the relevant scales are that of species and individual/population, respectively. Hence, a system of interacting species can be described at the species level, while for branching species a population level description is necessary. Our multi-scale framework thus consists of coupling the species and population level models where speciation events are detected in advance and then resolved at the population scale until the branching is complete. Moreover, since the population level model is formulated as a PDE, we first establish the well-posedness in the time-discrete setting, and then derive the a posteriori error estimates which provides a fully computable upper bound on an energy-type error, including also for the case of general smooth distributions (which will be useful for the detection of speciation events). Several numerical tests validate our framework in practice.