Population dynamics under selection and mutation: Long-time behavior for differential equations in measure spaces

We study the long-time behavior of solutions to a measure-valued selection–mutation model that we formulated in [14]. We establish permanence results for the full model, and we study the limiting behavior even when there is more than one strategy of a given fitness; a case that arises in applications. We show that for the pure selection case the solution of the dynamical system converges to a Dirac measure centered at the fittest strategy class provided that the support of the initial measure contains a fittest strategy; thus we term this Dirac measure an Asymptotically Stable Strategy. We also show that when the strategy space is discrete, the selection–mutation model with small mutation has a locally asymptotically stable equilibrium that attracts all initial conditions that are positive at the fittest strategy.