Spatial neutral dynamics

Abstract: Neutral models, in which individual agents with equal fitness undergo a birth-death-mutation process, are very popular in population genetics and community ecology. Usually these models are applied to populations and communities with spatial structure, but the analytic results presented so far are limited to well-mixed or mainland-island scenarios. Here we present a new technique, based on interface dynamics analysis, and apply it to the neutral dynamics in one, two and three spatial dimensions. New results are derived for the correlation length and for the main characteristics of the community, like total biodiversity and the species abundance distribution above the correlation length. Our results are supported by extensive numerical simulations, and provide qualitative and quantitative insights that allow for a rigorous comparison between model predictions and empirical data.