Ponchon Aurore, Scarpa Alice, Bocedi Greta, Palmer Stephen C F, Travis Justin M J
School of Biological Sciences University of Aberdeen Aberdeen UK.
Ecol Evol. 2021 Oct 18;11(21):15289-15302. doi: 10.1002/ece3.8215. eCollection 2021 Nov.
The ability of individuals to leave a current breeding area and select a future one is important, because such decisions can have multiple consequences for individual fitness, but also for metapopulation dynamics, structure, and long-term persistence through non-random dispersal patterns. In the wild, many colonial and territorial animal species display informed dispersal strategies, where individuals use information, such as conspecific breeding success gathered during prospecting, to decide whether and where to disperse. Understanding informed dispersal strategies is essential for relating individual behavior to subsequent movements and then determining how emigration and settlement decisions affect individual fitness and demography. Although numerous theoretical studies have explored the eco-evolutionary dynamics of dispersal, very few have integrated prospecting and public information use in both emigration and settlement phases. Here, we develop an individual-based model that fills this gap and use it to explore the eco-evolutionary dynamics of informed dispersal. In a first experiment, in which only prospecting evolves, we demonstrate that selection always favors informed dispersal based on a low number of prospected patches relative to random dispersal or fully informed dispersal, except when individuals fail to discriminate better patches from worse ones. In a second experiment, which allows the concomitant evolution of both emigration probability and prospecting, we show the same prospecting strategy evolving. However, a plastic emigration strategy evolves, where individuals that breed successfully are always philopatric, while failed breeders are more likely to emigrate, especially when conspecific breeding success is low. Embedding information use and prospecting behavior in eco-evolutionary models will provide new fundamental understanding of informed dispersal and its consequences for spatial population dynamics.
个体离开当前繁殖区域并选择未来繁殖区域的能力很重要，因为此类决策不仅会对个体适应性产生多种影响，还会通过非随机扩散模式对集合种群动态、结构及长期存续产生影响。在野外，许多群居和有领地意识的动物物种都表现出明智的扩散策略，即个体利用在勘察过程中收集到的信息，比如同种个体的繁殖成功率，来决定是否扩散以及向何处扩散。理解明智的扩散策略对于将个体行为与后续移动联系起来，进而确定迁出和定居决策如何影响个体适应性和种群统计学至关重要。尽管众多理论研究探讨了扩散的生态进化动态，但很少有研究在迁出和定居阶段都整合了勘察和公共信息利用。在此，我们开发了一个基于个体的模型来填补这一空白，并利用它来探索明智扩散的生态进化动态。在第一个实验中，仅让勘察过程进化，我们证明，相对于随机扩散或完全信息扩散，基于少量勘察斑块的选择总是有利于明智扩散，除非个体无法区分较好和较差的斑块。在第二个实验中，允许迁出概率和勘察过程同时进化，我们发现相同的勘察策略在进化。然而，一种可塑性迁出策略在进化，即繁殖成功的个体总是留居原地，而繁殖失败的个体更有可能迁出，尤其是在同种个体繁殖成功率较低时。将信息利用和勘察行为嵌入生态进化模型将为明智扩散及其对空间种群动态的影响提供新的基本认识。
