Modelling physiologically structured populations: renewal equations and partial differential equations

Abstract

We analyse the long term behaviour of the measure-valued solutions of a class of linear renewal equations modelling physiologically structured populations. The renewal equations that we consider are characterised by a regularisation property of the kernel. This regularisation property allows to deduce the large time behaviour of the measure-valued solutions from the asymptotic behaviour of their absolutely continuous, with respect to the Lebesgue measure, component. We apply the results to a model of cell growth and fission and to a model of waning and boosting of immunity. For both models we relate the renewal equation to the partial differential equation (PDE) formulation and draw conclusions about the asymptotic behaviour of the solutions of the PDEs.