The effect of geometry on survival and extinction in a moving-boundary problem motivated by the Fisher-KPP equation

Abstract: The Fisher-Stefan model involves solving the Fisher-KPP equation on a domain whose boundary evolves according to a Stefan-like condition. The Fisher-Stefan model alleviates two practical limitations of the standard Fisher-KPP model when applied to biological invasion. First, unlike the Fisher-KPP equation, solutions to the Fisher-Stefan model have compact support, enabling one to define the interface between occupied and unoccupied regions unambiguously. Second, the Fisher-Stefan model admits solutions for which the population becomes extinct, which is not possible in the Fisher-KPP equation. Previous research showed that population survival or extinction in the Fisher-Stefan model depends on a critical length in one-dimensional Cartesian or radially-symmetric geometry. However, the survival and extinction behaviour for general two-dimensional regions remains unexplored. We combine analysis and level-set numerical simulations of the Fisher-Stefan model to investigate the survival-extinction conditions for rectangular-shaped initial conditions. We show that it is insufficient to generalise the critical length conditions to critical area in two-dimensions. Instead, knowledge of the region geometry is required to determine whether a population will survive or become extinct.