Erin Ellefsen
Department of Applied Mathematics University of Colorado Boulder
Efficiently finding steady states of nonlocal territorial models in Ecology
There are certain populations of animals that tend to move in social groups. We investigate territory development of these social groups by studying a system of non-local continuum equations. However, these equations pose both analytical and computational challenges. Therefore, we perform a long-wave approximation to investigate a local approximation to this system. We take advantage of the structure of these local and non-local systems in order to find steady state solutions. We then compare the steady states of the local and non-local model to see if the local model is a good enough approximation as we move towards future projects.