A stochastic field theory for the evolution of quantitative traits in finite populations

Infinitely many distinct trait values may arise in populations bearing quantitative traits, and modeling their population dynamics is thus a formidable task. While classical models assume fixed or infinite population size, models in which the total population size fluctuates due to demographic noise in births and deaths can behave qualitatively differently from constant or infinite population models due to density-dependent dynamics. In this paper, I present a stochastic field theory for the eco...