Population persistence under advection-diffusion in river networks

An integro-differential equation on a tree graph is used to model the time evolution and spatial distribution of a population of organisms in a river network. Individual organisms become mobile at a constant rate, and disperse according to an advection-diffusion process with coefficients that are constant on the edges of the graph. Appropriate boundary conditions are imposed at the outlet and upstream nodes of the river network. The local rates of population growth/decay and that by which the organisms become mobile, are assumed constant in time and space. Imminent extinction of the population is understood as the situation whereby the zero solution to the integro-differential equation is stable. Lower and upper bounds for the eigenvalues of the dispersion operator, and related Sturm-Liouville problems are found. The analysis yields sufficient conditions for imminent extinction and/or persistence in terms of the values of water velocity, channel length, cross-sectional area and diffusivity throughout the river network.