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Published on: January 19, 2018
Evolution of unconditional dispersal in periodic environments.
Sebastian J Schreiber1, Chi-Kwong Li
1Department of Evolution and Ecology, University of California, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA. sschreiber@ucdavis.edu
Organisms may evolve unconditional dispersal in environments with changing conditions. This strategy ensures survival by including both sedentary and dispersive individuals, preventing population collapse.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Evolutionary Biology
- Population Dynamics
Background:
- Organisms adapt to environmental changes through dispersal.
- Unconditional dispersal, independent of location, is often selected against in heterogeneous environments.
- Spatial and temporal environmental variations influence dispersal strategies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the conditions under which unconditional dispersal is favored.
- To determine the characteristics of evolutionarily stable strategies (ESS) and evolutionarily stable coalitions (ESC) in heterogeneous environments.
- To explore the impact of abiotic and biotic factors on dispersal evolution.
Main Methods:
- Mathematical modeling to prove selection for unconditional dispersal.
- Analysis of ESS and ESC under spatial and temporal fitness variation.
- Simulations to validate theoretical predictions.
Main Results:
- Spatial and temporal environmental heterogeneity can select for unconditional dispersal.
- ESS or ESC will include dispersive phenotypes.
- At ESS/ESC, sink patches dominate, and source patches are absent.
- Abiotic forcing leads to ESS with dispersal or ESC with mixed phenotypes.
- Biotic interactions can drive higher dispersal rates, synchronizing populations.
Conclusions:
- Environmental fluctuations, particularly spatial-temporal heterogeneity, can favor unconditional dispersal strategies.
- The type of heterogeneity (abiotic vs. biotic) influences the resulting evolutionary stable strategy.
- Dispersal plays a crucial role in population persistence and dynamics within fluctuating environments.
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