Costly dispersal can destabilize the homogeneous equilibrium of a metapopulation.
I investigate the stability of the homogeneous equilibrium of a discrete-time metapopulation assuming costly dispersal with arbitrary (but fixed) spatial pattern of connectivity between the local populations. First, I link the stability of the metapopulation to the stability of a single isolated population by proving that the homogeneous metapopulation equilibrium, provided that it exists, is stable if and only if a single population, which is subject to extra mortality matching the average dispersal-induced mortality of the metapopulation, has a stable fixed point. Second, I demonstrate that extra mortality may destabilize the fixed point of a single population. Taken together, the two results imply that costly dispersal can destabilize the homogeneous equilibrium of a metapopulation. I illustrate this by simulations and discuss why earlier work, arriving at the opposite conclusion, was flawed.
Kisdi
Eva
E
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Helsinki, PO Box 68, FIN-00014, Finland. eva.kisdi@helsinki.fi
D003198:Computer Simulation; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D011156:Population Density; D011157:Population Dynamics