Modeling River Ecosystems

Individuals in rivers and streams are constantly pushed downstream. How can they persist in a location and prevent washout? Where in a river do they persist? How does unidirectional flow in general affect population dynamics and steady-state patterns? How does it affect communities? How does downstream drift shape evolution of dispersal? And how can we approach these questions in river networks?

Selected publications (the full list is here)

• O. Vasilyeva, D. Smith, and F. Lutscher (2024) Evolution of dispersal in river net-

  works. Bulletin of Mathematical Biology 86(12), 140.

• Y. Jin, F. Lutscher, Y. Pei (2017). Meandering rivers: How important is lateral

  variability for species persistence? Bulletin of Mathematical Biology 79(12): 2954–2985.

• Y. Samia, F. Lutscher (2017). Downstream flow and upstream movement determine the value of a stream reach for potadromous fish populations. Theoretical Ecology 10(1): 21–34.

• K.-Y. Lam, Y. Lou, F. Lutscher (2016). The emergence of range limits in advective

  environments. SIAM Applied Mathematics 76(2): 641–662

• F. Lutscher, E. McCauley, M.A. Lewis (2007) Spatial patterns and coexistence mechanisms in systems with unidirectional flow. Theoretical Population Biology 71(3): 267–277

• F. Lutscher, E. Pachepsky, and M.A. Lewis. (2005) The effect of dispersal patterns on stream populations. SIAM Review 47 (4): 749–772