Adaptive Dynamics of Diverging Fitness Optima

Blaine van Rensburg, Fabian Spill, Manh Hong Duong

Published 2023-11-01Version 1

We analyse a non-local parabolic integro-differential equation modelling the evolutionary dynamics of a phenotypically-structured population in a changing environment. Such models arise in the study of species adapting to climate change, or cancer adapting to therapy. Our results concern the long-time behaviour, in the small mutation limit, of the model. The main novelty of our work is that the time- and trait-dependent per capita growth rate is characterised by having multiple (locally) optimal traits which shift at possibly different velocities. When the velocities are the same we find that the solution concentrates on a point-set which depends on the shifting speed. These points can be thought of as "lagged optima" and the fitness value at each lagged optima is the "lagged fitness". When the velocities of the optimal traits are different and each has a potentially different optimal fitness, we find that the solution in fact concentrates as a Dirac delta function on the positive lagged optimum with maximum lagged fitness. Our results imply that in populations undergoing competition in temporally changing environments, both the true optimal fitness and the required rate of adaptation for each of the diverging optimal traits contribute to the eventual dominance of one trait.