Living in a ghetto within a local population: an empirical example of an ideal despotic distribution

Merging patterns and processes about the way individuals should be distributed in a habitat is a key issue in the framework of spatial ecology. Here the despotic distribution of individuals in two distinct and neighboring patches within a local population of a long-lived colonial bird, the Yellow-legged Gull (Larus michahellis), was assessed. There was no density dependence for suitable habitat at the study population, but behavioral data suggested that birds from the good patch precluded birds from the bad patch from breeding in their patch. Younger breeders were almost exclusively found in the bad patch, where individuals were probably attracted by conspecific attraction from the good patch. Most breeding parameters were lower in the bad patch, resulting mainly from a higher vulnerability to environmental perturbations and a higher rate of intraspecific nest predation. Attempts at breeding dispersal between the two patches were only observed from the bad to the good patch. Strikingly, adult survival and large-scale dispersal, two life history parameters that are very conservative in long-lived organisms, were also more affected at the bad patch when catastrophic predation occurred. The study was consistent with an ideal despotic distribution at small spatial scale, and suggests that individual behavior can influence local population dynamics.