A finite element method to solve a population dynamics stage-structured model of intertidal barnacles

Many marine organisms are fixed or highly sedentary as adults but the adult population may be strongly dependent on the oceanic transport of planktonic larvae. In order to assess interactions between oceanographic and biological processes that determine the population dynamics of marine organisms with a sessile adult phase restricted to the coastline and a planktonic larval phase, we present a stage-structured finite element model for the barnacle Balanus glandula that inhabits the rocky intertidal zone of central California, USA.The larval dispersal depends on knowing the flow pattern. To this end, we develop a numerical procedure to couple physical and biological models in a very simple way when the velocity flow field is known on some discrete values in the domain of interest and at a given time. We investigate the effects of different flow patterns and velocity speeds on the abundance and the distribution of this organism.