A hybrid finite element method for moving-habitat models in two spatial dimensions

Abstract

Moving-habitat models track the density of a population whose suitable habitat shifts as a consequence of climate change. Whereas most previous studies in this area consider 1-dimensional space, we derive and study a spatially 2-dimensional moving-habitat model via reaction-diffusion equations. The population inhabits the whole space. The suitable habitat is a bounded region where population growth is positive; the unbounded complement of its closure is unsuitable with negative growth. The interface between the two habitat types moves, depicting the movement of the suitable habitat poleward. Detailed modelling of individual movement behaviour induces a nonstandard discontinuity in the density across the interface. For the corresponding semi-discretised system we prove well-posedness for a constant shifting velocity before constructing an implicit-explicit hybrid finite element method. In this method, a Lagrange multiplier weakly imposes the jump discontinuity across the interface. For a stationary interface, we derive optimal a priori error estimates over a conformal mesh with nonconformal discretisation. We demonstrate with numerical convergence tests that these results hold for the moving interface. Finally, we demonstrate the strength of our hybrid finite element method with two biologically motivated cases, one for a domain with a curved boundary and the other for non-constant shifting velocity.