Asia Pacific Journal of Engineering Science and Technology 1 (1) (2015) 1-10

Asia Pacific Journal of Engineering Science and Technology

journal homepage: www.apjest.com

Full length article

Biological population model and its solution by reduced differential transform
method
H. S. Shukla, Gufran Malik*
Department of Mathematics & Statistics, DDU Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur-273009, India

(Received: 25 December 2015; accepted 28 December 2015; published online 30 December 2015)

ABSTRACT
In this paper, an approximate solution of the generalized biological population model
(BPM) is proposed by means of a recent semi-analytical method: “reduced differential
transformation method”. The method is very reliable, effective and efficient powerful technique
for solving wide range of problems arising in natural sciences. Using the method, it is possible to
find an exact solution or a closed approximate solution of any differential equation. The scheme
is very easy to implement since it takes very small size of computation contrary to the other
methods. Four numerical examples are carried out in order to validate and illustrate the
efficiency of the method considering the scenario of both linear and nonlinear biological
population model.

Keywords: Biological population model; Reduced differential transform method; Exact solution

1. Introduction
The dispersal or emigration plays an important role in the regulation of population of
some species. The diffusion of a biological species in a region C is described by the three
 
functions of position x   x, y  in region C and time t [1]: p x, t , the population density;

   
v x, t , the diffusion velocity, and f x, t , the population supply.

The population density p  x, t  expresses the number of individuals per unit volume at the

position x and time t ; it’s integral over any sub region D of region C gives the total population

*
E-mail address: gufranmalik@gmail.com

© 2015 Author(s)
2 H.S. Shukla, G. Malik Asia Pacific J. Eng. Sci. Tech. 1 (1) (2015) 1-10

 
of D at time t , whereas f x, t expresses the rate at which individuals are supplied per unit

 
volume at position x by births and deaths. The diffusion velocity v x, t represents the average

velocity of those individuals who occupy the position x at time t , and it describes the flow of
population from one point to another point. The entities p , v and f are consistent with the
following law of population balance: for every regular sub region D of C and for all time t ,
d
dt D
pdV   pv.ndA   fdV , (1)
D D

where n is the outward unit normal to the boundary D of D . From Eq. (1), it can be seen that
the rate of change of population of D plus the rate at which the individuals leave D across its
boundary must be equal to the rate at which the individuals are supplied directly to D . By
making the assumptions [1]
f  f  p  , v    p  p, (2)
where   p   0 for p  0 , and  is the Laplace operator, the following nonlinear degenerate
parabolic partial differential equation for the population density p is found
p
  2   p    f  p  , t  0, x, y  R, (3)
t
2 2
where  2   and   p  is a function of p .
x 2 y 2
Gurney and Nisbet [2] applied   p  , as a special case for the modeling of the population
of animals. The movements were made generally either by mature animals driven by mature
invaders or by young animals just reaching maturity moving out of their parental territory to
establish breeding territory of their own. In both cases, it is much more plausible to assume that
they will be directed towards nearby vacant territory. Therefore, in this model, movement will
take place almost exclusively down the population density gradient and will be more rapid at
high population densities than at low ones. To model this situation, Gurney and Nisbet [2]
further considered a walk through a rectangular grid, in which at each step an animal may either
stay at its present location or may move in the direction of the lowest population density. The
probability distribution between these two possibilities being determined by the magnitude of the
population density gradient at the grid side is concerned. This model leads to Eq. (3) with
  p   p 2 , to the following equation
p
  2  p 2   f  p  , t  0, x, y  R, (4)
t
with the given initial condition p (x, y , 0) .
Some properties of Eq. (4) such as Holder estimates and its solutions were studied in [3].
Three examples of constitutive equations for f are depicted as
3 H.S. Shukla, G. Malik Asia Pacific J. Eng. Sci. Tech. 1 (1) (2015) 1-10

(i) f ( p )  cp, c = constant, Malthusian Law [1].

(ii) f ( p)  c1 p  c2 p2 , c1 ,c2 = positive constants, Verhulst Law [1].
(iii) f ( p)  cp ,  c  0,0    1 , Porous media [4, 5].
The more general form of f can be taken as f ( p)  hp a 1  rpb  , which yields
p
  2  p 2   hp a 1  rp b  , t  0, x, y  R, (5)
t
where h , a , r , b are real numbers. For h  c, a  1, r  0 and h  c1 , a  b  1, r  c2 c1 , Eq. (5)
leads to Malthusian Law and Verhulst Law.
The linear and nonlinear population systems were solved in [6, 7] using variational iteration
method (VIM), Adomain decomposition method (ADM), and homotopy perturbation method
(HPM). A meshless local radial point interpolation numerical method is used by Shivanian [8] to
simulate a nonlinear partial integro-differential equation arising in population dynamics. The
major drawbacks of these approximate analytical methods are that they require complex and
large size of computations. To overcome from these difficulties, reduced differential transform
method is employed for solving this mathematical model. The method, introduced by Keskin et
al. [9, 10], is a semi-analytical technique for solving linear and nonlinear differential equation,
and is widely applicable (refer [11-18]). The solution procedure of the method is much simpler
than the other methods and it takes very less computational effort.
The main purpose of this study is to solve the biological population model using the
reduced differential transformation method. The obtained results are compared with those
obtained by VIM and ADM and HPM [19-21].

2. Reduced differential transform method

In this section, the basic definitions of the reduced differential transformation are
revisited. Let us consider a function of two variables w  x, t  which can be expressed as a product
of two single-variable functions, i.e., w  x, t   F  x  G(t ) . By means of the properties of the one-
dimensional differential transformation, the function w  x, t  can be expressed as
   
w( x, t )   F  i xi  G ( j )t j  W  i, j xit j , (6)
i 0 j 0 i 0 j 0

where W  i, j   F  i  G ( j ) is called the spectrum of w  x, t  .

Let RD denotes the reduced differential transform operator, and RD1 the inverse reduced
differential transform operator. The basic definition and operation of the reduced differential
transform method is described below.

Definition 2.1: Let w  x, t  be analytic and continuously differentiable with respect to space
variable x and time variable t in the domain of interest, the spectrum function
4 H.S. Shukla, G. Malik Asia Pacific J. Eng. Sci. Tech. 1 (1) (2015) 1-10

1  k 
Wk  x    w  x, t   , (7)
k !  t k
 t t0

is the reduced transformed function of w  x, t  . For convenience, w  x, t  (lowercase) represents

the original function while Wk  x  (uppercase) stands for the reduced transformed function. The
differential inverse reduced transform of Wk  x  is defined as

w  x, t    Wk  x  t  t0  .
k
(8)
k 0

From Eq. (7) and (8), one can observe


1  k 
w  x, t    w  x, t    t  t 0  .
k
 (9)
k  0 k !  t
k
 t t
0

From the above definition, it can be noticed that the concept of the reduced differential transform
is derived from the two-dimensional differential transform method.

Definition 2.2: Let u  x, t   RD 1 U k  x  , v  x, t   RD 1 Vk  x  , and the convolution  denotes
the reduced differential transform version of the multiplication, the fundamental operations of
the reduced differential transform are given in Table 1.

Table 1: Fundamental operations of the reduced differential transform method.

Original function: f  x, t  RDT function RD ( f ( x, t ))  Fk  x, t 

u  x, t  v  x, t  k
U k  x   Vk  x    U r  x  Vk  r  x 
r 0

 u  x, t    v  x, t  U k  x   Vk  x 
u  x, t  
Uk  x
x x
u  x, t   k  1U k 1  x 
t
 u  x, t 
rs
 k  s !  r U k s  x 
x r t s k! x r
x mt n  xm , k  n

0, otherwise
et k
k!
sin  wt  c  wk k 
sin   c
k!  2! 
5 H.S. Shukla, G. Malik Asia Pacific J. Eng. Sci. Tech. 1 (1) (2015) 1-10

3. Computational Examples
In this section, we describe the method explained in Section 2 using the following four
examples of the biological population model (BPM) to validate the efficiency and reliability of
the described method.

Example 3.1: Consider the linear BPM

p
  2  p 2   hp, (10)
t
subject to the initial condition
p(x, y, 0)= xy . (11)
Applying the described method to Eq. (10), the following recurrence relation is obtained
 k

 k  1 Pk 1  x, y    2   Pr  x, y Pk r  x, y    hPk  x, y  . (12)
 r 0 
Using the method to the initial condition (11), we find
P0  x, y   xy . (13)
Using Eq. (13) into Eq. (12), we found Pk  x, y  values successively
h2 h2 h3 h3
P1  x, y   h xy ; P2  x, y   xy  xy ; P3  x, y   xy  xy ;
2 2! 6 3!
(14)
h4 h2 hk
P4  x, y   xy  xy ;...; Pk  x, y   xy .
24 4! k!
Using the differential inverse reduced transform of Pk  x,y  , we have

p  x, y, t    Pk  x, y  t k  P0  x, y   P1  x, y  t  P2  x, y  t 2  P3  x, y  t 3  ...
k 0
(15)
 h2 h3 hk 
 xy 1  ht  t 2  t 3  ...  t k  ...  .
 2! 3! k! 

Fig. 1. Physical solution profile obtained by RDTM for the Example 3.1.
6 H.S. Shukla, G. Malik Asia Pacific J. Eng. Sci. Tech. 1 (1) (2015) 1-10

In closed form, the exact solution can be expressed as

p(x, y, t )  xyeht , (16)
which is the same exact solution obtained by P. Roul [15] using HPM, and also by Shakeri et al.
[14] using VIM and ADM with parameter h  0.20 . Fig.1 depicts the solution profile of Example
3.1 with h  0.20 at different time levels 0  t  1 .

Example 3.2: Consider the following BPM

p
  2  p 2   p, (17)
t
with the initial condition
p(x, y,0)= sin x sinh y . (18)
Applying RDTM method to Eq. (17), we obtain the following recursive equation
 k

 k  1 Pk 1  x, y    2   Pr  x, y Pk r  x, y    Pk  x, y  . (19)
 r 0 
Using RDTM to the initial condition (18), we get
P0  x, y   sin x sinh y . (20)
Using Eq. (20) in Eq. (19), we get the following Pk  x,y  values successively
1 1 1 1
P3  x, y   sin x sinh y  sin x sinh y ;P4  x, y   sin x sinh y  sin x sinh y ;
6 3! 24 4!
(21)
1
;...; Pk  x, y   sin x sinh y .
k!

Fig. 2. Physical solution behavior obtained by RDTM for the Example 3.2.

Using the differential inverse reduced transform of Pk  x,y  , we get

7 H.S. Shukla, G. Malik Asia Pacific J. Eng. Sci. Tech. 1 (1) (2015) 1-10


p  x, y, t    Pk  x, y  t k  P0  x, y   P1  x, y  t  P2  x, y  t 2  P3  x, y  t 3  ...
k 0
(22)
 1 1 1 
 sin x sinh y 1  t  t 2  t 3  ...  t k  ...  .
 2! 3! k! 
The exact solution, in closed form, can be given as
p(x, y, t )   sin x sinh y et .  (23)
The same exact solution was obtained by Roul [15] using HPM. Fig. 2 depicts the physical
solution behavior of Example 3.2 at different time levels 0  t  1 .

Example 3.3: Consider the nonlinear BPM:

p  8 
  2  p 2   p 1  p  , (24)
t  9 
with initial condition
1
 x y
3
p(x, y, 0)=e . (25)
Applying the described technique to Eq. (24), we obtain the following iterative formula
 k
 8 k
 k  1 Pk 1  x, y    2   Pr  x, y Pk r  x, y    Pk  x, y    Pr  x, y  Pk r  x, y . (26)
 r 0  9 r 0

Now using RDTM to the initial condition (25), we get

1
 x y
P0  x, y   e 3 . (27)
Using Eq. (27) in Eq. (26), we get the following Pk  x,y  values successively
1
 x y  1 1  x  y  1 13  x  y  1 1  x y  1 1  x y 
P1  x, y   e 3 ; P2  x, y   e 3  e ; P3  x, y    e 3   e3 ;
2 2! 6 3!
(28)
 1
1 k 1
1  x y   x y
P4  x, y   e 3
;...; Pk  x, y   e 3
;...
4! k!
Using the differential inverse reduced transform of Pk  x,y  , we get

p  x, y, t    Pk  x, y  t k  P0  x, y   P1  x, y  t  P2  x, y  t 2  P3  x, y  t 3  ...
k 0
(29)
  t   t   t  
1 2 3 k
 x y
e 1  (t ) 
3
  ...   ... .
 2! 3! k! 
Hence, the exact solution, in closed form, can be given as
1
 x  y  t
p(x, y, t )  e 3
, (30)
which the same is as obtained by Roul [15] using HPM, and also by Shakeri et al. [14] using
8 H.S. Shukla, G. Malik Asia Pacific J. Eng. Sci. Tech. 1 (1) (2015) 1-10

VIM and ADM. The physical solution profile is shown in Fig. 3. Fig.3 depicts the solution
profile of Example 3.3 at different time levels 0  t  1 .

Fig. 3. Solution profile obtained by RDTM for the Example 3.3.

Example 3.4: Consider the following nonlinear BPM

p
  2  p 2   hp  p 2 , (31)
t
with initial condition
p(x, y, 0)=e x / 2 . (32)
The following iterative formula is obtained on applying RDTM to Eq. (31),
2 
k k
  k 1  
k  1 P x , y    r  P x , y  k r    k    Pr  x, y  Pk r  x, y .
P x , y  hP x , y  (33)
 r 0  r 0

Now using RDTM to the initial condition (32), we obtain

P0  x, y   e x / 2 . (34)
Using Eq. (34) in Eq. (33), we get the following Pk  x,y  values successively

 h   h 
2 3

P1  x, y   he x / 2 ; P2  x, y   e x / 2 ; P3  x, y   ex/ 2;
2! 3!
(35)
 h   h 
4 k

P4  x, y   e x / 2 ;...; Pk  x, y   e x / 2 ,...
4! k!
Using the differential inverse reduced transform of Pk  x,y  , we get
9 H.S. Shukla, G. Malik Asia Pacific J. Eng. Sci. Tech. 1 (1) (2015) 1-10


p  x, y, t    Pk  x, y  t k  P0  x, y   P1  x, y  t  P2  x, y  t 2  P3  x, y  t 3  ...
k 0
(36)
  h  2  h  3  h  k 
2 3 k

e x/2
1  (h)t  t  t  ...  t  ... .
 2! 3! k! 
Thus, the exact solution, in closed form, can be expressed as p(x, y, t )  e x2ht  / 2 . Fig. 4 depicts
the solution profile of Example 3.4 with h  0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1.0 at different time levels 0  t  1 .

Fig. 4. Physical solution profile obtained by RDTM for the Example 3.4.

4. Conclusions
In this study, the reduced differential transform method is implemented for a degenerate
class of parabolic partial differential equation arising in the spatial diffusion biological
populations. The proposed solution is an infinite power series for the appropriate initial
condition, and evaluates the solution without any discretization, transformation, perturbation, or
restrictive conditions. Computed solutions by the method agree excellently with HPM, VIM and
ADM. However, the performed calculations show that the described method needs very small
10 H.S. Shukla, G. Malik Asia Pacific J. Eng. Sci. Tech. 1 (1) (2015) 1-10

size of computation compared to HPM, VIM and ADM, and therefore, it is a very effective and
efficient powerful mathematical tool for finding the approximate exact solutions for a wide range
of problems arising in applied sciences and engineering fields.

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