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WEAK INFLUENCES OF INITIAL CONDITIONS ON METAPOPULATION PERSISTENCE TIMES
Author(s) -
Fagan William F.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
ecological applications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.864
H-Index - 213
eISSN - 1939-5582
pISSN - 1051-0761
DOI - 10.1890/1051-0761(1999)009[1430:wioico]2.0.co;2
Subject(s) - metapopulation , persistence (discontinuity) , ecology , biology , demography , biological dispersal , population , geology , geotechnical engineering , sociology
In both conservation and biological control, translocation (the human‐aided release or redistribution of individuals within a landscape) is an important management tool aimed at enhancing species persistence. Metapopulation theory, which has become a focus for understanding species' dynamics in patchy landscapes, has traditionally emphasized long‐term and equilibrial dynamics rather than the consequences of a species' initial dispersion. Here, I examine a metapopulation model with stochastic catastrophes to assess the relative influence of a species' initial dispersion on metapopulation persistence times. My analyses reveal that, in contrast to the strong influences of patch number, reproductive rate, and dispersal rate, variation in initial dispersion often has minimal effects on metapopulation persistence. However, initial dispersion appears to be a more important factor in metapopulation persistence for systems facing extra threats at low density, such as Allee effects or demographic stochasticity. If proven to be more generally true, such surprisingly negligible effects of initial dispersion on metapopulation persistence times would suggest that, for some systems, the micromanagement of individuals' distributions among patches may not be a high priority.