What is population dynamics?
Population dynamics is concerned with the evolution in time of the characteristics of individuals in a given population. The population can be living beings (e.g. fishes, birds, insects, humans, viruses) or inorganic objects (e.g. ashes, dusts, droplets) . Various characteristics can be of interest (such as the size of the population, the age of individuals, their weight, their composition).
Within that context, mathematical models have been suggested to reproduce the dynamics of such populations.
Which applications are concerned with population dynamics?
Population dynamics is a matter of concern in a wide range of natural and industrial systems.
Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of applications:
- The invasion of non-native species in the context of crop protection and pest control (e.g. plants, insects or birds);
- The spread of ecological populations in the context of marine areas (e.g. fishes, algae or micro-organisms);
- The dynamics of human populations (e.g. crowds dynamics, traffic flow);
- The propagation of viruses in the context of epidemics (like bacteria, viruses or tumor cells);
- The dynamics of stars in the Galaxy or dust/grains in protoplanetary disks (e.g. growth of planetory embryos by accretion of dust, collision between large planetoids/planets);
- The evolution of aerosols in atmospheric sciences (e.g. droplet formation and growth in clouds);
- The growth of undesired particles in industrial systems (e.g. soot particles in combustion engines).
Which scientific domains are involved?
As transpires from the list of applications, population dynamics is a highly multi-disciplinary topic. In fact, it involves scientific domains such as: physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, ecology, mathematics or even economy.
What are the scientific challenges in population dynamics?
Due to the inter-disciplinary nature of the phenomena related to population dynamics, developing models usually requires to have knowledge in several scientific domains. Hence, future models call for new exchanges between the scientific communities.
In addition, population dynamics often involve multi-scale phenomena (e.g. with the growth of meter-sized objects in planetary systems spanning over millions of kilometers). Despite the progress made in computational sciences, it is impossible to track the motion of each individual in such complex systems. Hence, each model is the result of a careful trade-off between the phenomena that are accounted for, those neglected and the computational costs (as well as the efficiency of the algorithms used).
Depending on the application, the type of models varies. For example, some studies are concerned with controlling a population (e.g. when trying to prevent the spread of invasive species, bacteria), while other works try to optimize a population (like when trying to improve the efficiency of car/pedestrian traffic) or simply to predict the future state of a system (as in planetary sciences or droplet formation).
What is the objective of this project?
POPULATE is concerned precisely with the models for population dynamics. It aims at creating cross-fertilization between the various communities involved in the topic.
