IAS Distinguished Lecture

Predators-prey Model with Competition, the Emergence of Packs and Territoriality

Abstract

In this lecture, meant for a non-specialized audience, the speaker will discuss equations representing the dynamics of ecological populations and their spatial distribution. The speaker will report on a series of works about systems of predators interacting with a single prey. This system is related to models arising in multiphase Bose-Einstein condensates particle annihilations or spatially distributed chemical reactions. He analyzes the situation of predators like wolves that can divide up into several hostile packs. The questions are to understand the conditions under which predators segregate into packs, whether there is an advantage to have such hostile packs, and to compare the various territory configurations that arise in this context. Mathematically, he focuses on the analysis of stationary states, stability issues, and the asymptotic of the system when the competition parameter becomes unbounded.


About the speaker

Prof. Henri Berestycki received his PhD from Université Pierre et Marie Curie in 1975, and joined the University of Paris XIII as a Professor in 1983. He then returned to Université Pierre et Marie Curie as the Professor of Mathematics in 1988. In 2001, he moved to École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (which became a constituent college of the federal PSL Research University later), where he is currently a Professor. He has also been appointed the Dean of Research in PSL Research University since 2015.

Prof. Berestycki’s current research interests include the mathematical modelling of financial markets, mathematical models in biology and especially in ecology, and modelling in social sciences.

Prof. Berestycki received numerous of awards including the Prix Sophie Germain of the French Academy of Sciences (2004); the Humboldt Prize in Germany (2004); the French Legion of Honor (2010) and also the American Mathematical Society Fellowship (2012). He was also elected the Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2013.

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