A brief review of recent results [D.R. Nelson, N.M. Shnerb, Phys. Rev. E 58
(1998) 1383] connecting population dynamics in the presence of disorder an
d convection with a noisy Burgers' equation is given. In the limit of high
convection velocity, linearized population growth in dimensions is describe
d by a (d - 1)-dimensional Burgers' equation with random noise. The Burgers
mapping leads to universal results for the spreading and transverse profil
e of populations drifting downstream through a disordered medium with spati
ally varying growth rates. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All
rights reserved.