Bayesian Population Dynamics of Spreading Species

The invasion by the spreading species is one of the most serious threats to biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Despite a number of empirical and theoretical studies, there is still no general model about why or when settlement becomes invasion. The purpose of this work is to test a model of Bayesian population dynamics relying on best-response strategies that could help in resource management and bioeconomic modeling. Given the species survival probability, our static game unveils a breaking-level probability in mixed-strategies, where it is in the interest of exotic species to invade and in the interest of native species to resist. In dynamic setting, we introduce a stochastic version of the balance equation based on conditional probabilities. When the species survival probability and the availability of resources in the ecosystem are respectively high and low, the dynamics shows that the rebalancing of subpopulations operates at a high pace.