Evolutionarily Stable Dispersal Rates Do Not Always Increase with Local Extinction Rates

Earlier models on the evolution of dispersal have suggested that evolutionarily stable dispersal rates should increase with the frequency of local extinctions. Most metapopulation models assume site saturation (i.e., no local population dynamics), yet the majority of species distributed as metapopulations rarely attain carrying capacity in all occupied patches. In this article, we relax this assumption and examine the evolutionarily stable dispersal rate under nonsaturated but still competitive demographic conditions. Contrary to previous predictions, we show that increasing local extinction rates may allow decreasing dispersal rates to evolve.