Department of Biological Sciences, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX, UK.
Ecol Lett. 2020 Sep;23(9):1370-1379. doi: 10.1111/ele.13564. Epub 2020 Jun 30.
Environmental variability can lead to dispersal: why stay put if it is better elsewhere? Without clues about local conditions, the optimal strategy is often to disperse a set fraction of offspring. Many habitats contain environmentally differing sub-habitats. Is it adaptive for individuals to sense in which sub-habitat they find themselves, using environmental clues, and respond plastically by altering the dispersal rates? This appears to be done by some plants which produce dimorphic seeds with differential dispersal properties in response to ambient temperature. Here we develop a mathematical model to show, that in highly variable environments, not only does sensing promote plasticity of dispersal morph ratio, individuals who can sense their sub-habitat and respond in this way have an adaptive advantage over those who cannot. With a rise in environmental variability due to climate change, our understanding of how natural populations persist and respond to changes has become crucially important.
如果在其他地方更好，为什么要停留不动？如果没有关于当地条件的线索，最佳策略通常是将一定比例的后代分散。许多栖息地包含环境不同的亚栖息地。个体是否可以利用环境线索感知自己所处的亚栖息地，并通过改变扩散率来做出灵活的反应？这似乎是一些植物通过产生具有不同扩散特性的二态种子来完成的，这些种子可以根据环境温度做出响应。在这里，我们开发了一个数学模型来表明，在高度可变的环境中，感知不仅促进了扩散形态比的可塑性，而且能够以这种方式感知其亚栖息地并做出响应的个体比那些无法做出响应的个体具有适应性优势。由于气候变化导致环境变异性增加，我们对自然种群如何生存以及对变化做出反应的理解变得至关重要。
