Evolution of reduced dispersal mortality and `fat-tailed' dispersal kernels in autocorrelated landscapes

Authored by Hans Joachim Poethke, Thomas Hovestadt, S Messner

Date Published: 2001

Sponsors: German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG)

Platforms: STATISTICA

Model Documentation: Other Narrative Mathematical description

Model Code URLs: Model code not found

Abstract

Models describing the evolution of dispersal strategies have mostly focused on the evolution of dispersal rates. Taking trees as a model for organisms with undirected, passive dispersal, we have developed an individual-based, spatially explicit simulation tool to investigate the evolution of the dispersal kernel, P(r), and its resulting cumulative seed-density distribution, D(r). Simulations were run on a variety of fractal landscapes differing in the fraction of suitable habitat and the spatial autocorrelation. Starting from a uniform D(r), evolution led to an increase in the fraction of seeds staying in the home cell, a reduction of the dispel sal mortality (arrival in unsuitable habitat), and the evolution of `fat-tailed' D(r) in autocorrelated landscapes and approximately uniform D(r) in random landscapes. The evolutionary process was characterized by long periods of stasis with a few bouts of rapid change in the dispersal rate.

Tags

models Metapopulation ecology Seed dispersal Population-dynamics Environments Extinction Distance Trees Plant migration