Sergei Petrovskii

Professor in Applied Mathematics

I am a mathematician with 25 years of experience in modelling of natural phenomena. For the last 20 years my research has been focused on nonlinear dynamics, dynamical systems' application to ecology and ecological complexity. I published two books (research monographs), a few conference proceedings, and 80+ papers in peer-reviewed journals. I have co-managed several research projects supported by various national and international foundations. I am the Editor-in-Chief of Ecological Complexity. I was a (co)organizer and/or invited speaker for several international conferences.

Research interests

non-equilibrium structures in diffusion-reaction systems:: mechanisms of spatiotemporal self-organization in a system of interacting species, pattern formation and chaos, effects of stochastisity and noise, diffusion-reaction systems on a lattice
nonlinear waves and biological invasion:: travelling population waves, biological/physical factors affecting the wave speed, patterns of species dispersal different from travelling fronts, interplay between different mechanisms of species spread, exactly solvable diffusion-reaction models
ecological complexity:: nonlinear phenomena in population dynamics, bifurcations and chaos, factors enhancing/hampering chaotic dynamics in ecological communities
individual movement and random walk:: models of individual animal movement
ecology & environment:: coupling between biological and environmental processes, interplay between processes acting on different spatial and temporal scales, mathematical modelling of self-organized plankton patterns in turbulent environment

Recent and upcoming conferences

Summer School "The Mathematics Behind Biological Invasions" (Edmonton, Canada, May 27 - June 14, 2013)

Impact of Climate Change on Biological Invasions and Population Distributions (Banff, Canada, May 12-17, 2013)

Models in Population Dynamics and Ecology 2013 (Osnabrueck, Germany, August 26-29, 2013)

New book:

Lewis, M.A., Maini, P.K., Petrovskii, S.V., Eds. (2013) Dispersal, Individual Movement and Spatial Ecology: A Mathematical Perspective. Springer, Lecture Notes in Mathematics Vol. 2071.

Some other recent publications

1. Kawai, R., Petrovskii, S.V. (2012) Multiscale properties of random walk models of animal movement: Lessons from statistical inference. Proceedings of Royal Society A 468, 1428-1451.

2. Petrovskii, S.V., Petrovskaya, N.B. (2012) Computational ecology as an emerging science. Interface Focus 2, 241-254.

3. Jansen, V.A.A., Mashanova, A., Petrovskii, S.V. (2012) Why mussels do not do a Levy walk: Comments on "Levy walks evolve through interaction between movement and environmental complexity." Science 335, 918.

4. Petrovskaya, N.B., Petrovskii, S.V., Murchie, A.K. (2012) Challenges of ecological monitoring: estimating population abundance from sparse trap counts. J. R. Soc. Interface 9, 420-435.

5. Petrovskii, S.V., Mashanova, A., Jansen, V.A.A. (2011) Variation in individual walking behavior creates the impression of a Levy flight. PNAS 108, 8704-8707.

6. Sieber, M., Malchow, H., Petrovskii, S.V. (2010) Noise-induced suppression of periodic travelling waves in oscillatory reaction–diffusion systems. Proceedings of Royal Society A 466, 1903-1917.

7. Petrovskii, S.V. and Morozov, A.Y. (2009) Dispersal in a statistically structured population: Fat tails revisited. American Naturalist 173, 278-289. (Online enhancement)

For an extended list of publications, please use the link here (or just use the "More Publications" button in the top left corner of the page).

For a citation report, see my Google Scholar profile.

For a broader view of the mathematical ecology research in Leicester please visit the Mathematical Ecology Group page. See also our Mathematical Ecology Seminar web page: Midlands MESS.