Analysis of a class of nonlinear integro-differential equations arising in a forestry application

Certain models describing the age dynamics of a natural forest give rise to nonlinear integro-differential equations for the seedlings density as a function of time. The special feature of the problem is that corresponding solutions have non-smooth second derivatives. Since the biological model contains a small parameter, a perturbation method can be used to find an asymptotic solution. Banach's fixed point theorem is used to prove existence and uniqueness of the solution, the convergence of a numerical scheme, and the validity of the asymptotic approximation. In an example numerical and asymptotic approximations are compared for various choices of time steps.