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Updated: Mar 28, 2026

Monitoring Spatial Segregation in Surface Colonizing Microbial Populations
Published on: October 29, 2016
Impact of dispersal on the stability of metapopulations
Eric Tromeur1, Lars Rudolf1, Thilo Gross1
1University of Bristol, Merchant Venturers School of Engineering, Bristol, UK.
Abstract:
Dispersal is a key ecological process that enables local populations to form spatially extended systems called metapopulations. In the present study, we investigate how dispersal affects the linear stability of a general single-species metapopulation model. We discuss both the influence of local within-patch dynamics and the effects of various dispersal behaviours on stability. We find that positive density-dependent dispersal and positive density-dependent settlement are destabilizing dispersal behaviours while negative density-dependent dispersal and negative density-dependent settlement are stabilizing. It is also shown that dispersal has a stabilizing impact on heterogeneous metapopulations that correlates positively with the number of patches and the connectance of metapopulation networks.
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