Evaluating the metapopulation consequences of ecological traps

Ecological traps occur when environmental changes cause maladaptive habitat selection. Despite their relevance to metapopulations, ecological traps have been studied predominantly at local scales. How these local impacts scale up to affect the dynamics of spatially structured metapopulations in heterogeneous landscapes remains unexplored. We propose that assessing the metapopulation consequences of traps depends on a variety of factors that can be grouped into four categories: the probability of encounter, the likelihood of selection, the fitness costs of selection and species-specific vulnerability to these costs. We evaluate six hypotheses using a network-based metapopulation model to explore the relative importance of factors across these categories within a spatial context. Our model suggests (i) traps are most severe when they represent a large proportion of habitats, severely reduce fitness and are highly attractive, and (ii) species with high intrinsic fitness will be most susceptible. We provide the first evidence that (iii) traps may be beneficial for metapopulations in rare instances, and (iv) preferences for natal-like habitats can magnify the effects of traps. Our study provides important insight into the effects of traps at landscape scales, and highlights the need to explicitly consider spatial context to better understand and manage traps within metapopulations.