The project is organized under the auspices of the American Institute of Mathematics (AIM) SQuaREs (Structured Quartet Research Ensembles) program.

Project summary

This project aims at establishing a theoretical underpinning, supported by numerical simulations, for the axiom that marine ecosystems transition between multiple metastable states. The approach involves the development of two mathematical – deterministic and stochastic – modeling frameworks. In the deterministic framework, we describe the interlink among multiple predator-prey groups. This description is a parsimonious representation of a marine ecosystem. By extending the deterministic, to a stochastic framework, we aim to mimic the nature of empirical marine ecosystems. Within this framework, we identify multistable states and probabilistic transitions between these states. While the stochastic approach is well established in the molecular dynamics framework, its application to food-webs is novel.

Meet the research group

• Anna S. Frank (PI, Postdoc), Univ. of Bergen, Norway
• Sam Subbey (Co-PI, Research Professor), Institute of Marine Research, Bergen, Norway
• Susanna Röblitz (Professor), Univ. of Bergen, Norway
• Elizabeth Read (Associate Professor), Univ. of California, Irvine, USA

Student associates

• Andrea Pinke, Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany
• Jiawen Zhang, Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany

Project duration

The project has a duration of three years (2023-2025).

Time-line and news

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