Pattern formation through genetic drift at expanding population fronts

We investigate the nature of genetic drift acting at the leading edge of range expansions, building on recent results in [Hallatschek et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 104(50): 19926-19930 (2007)]. A well-mixed population of two fluorescently labeled microbial species is grown in a circular geometry. As the population expands, a coarsening process driven by genetic drift gives rise to sectoring patterns with fractal boundaries, which show a nontrivial asymptotic distribution. Using simplified lattice-based Monte Carlo simulations as a generic caricature of the above experiment, we present detailed numerical results to establish a model for sector boundaries as time-changed Brownian motions. This is used to derive a general one-to-one mapping of sector statistics between circular and linear geometries, which leads to a full understanding of the sectoring patterns in terms of annihilating diffusions