From individual space-use patterns to metapopulation dynamics: A conceptual framework

Background/Question/Methods

An individual’s survival and reproductive success are influenced by biotic and abiotic conditions which are dynamic in space and time. The individual can control aspects of the environment it experiences through movement and resource selection – its space-use behaviors. The resultant space-use patterns are important drivers of population dynamics across space and time. Ecologists recognize the interconnectedness of individual space-use behaviors, subsequent space-use patterns, and population dynamics, justifying the study of individual space-use as informing population management. However, the lack of a conceptual framework making the mechanistic links between space-use and population dynamics explicit has hindered integration of these relationships into research, so that many of the benefits for population management have yet to be realized. In my talk, I will describe a graphical representation of such a mechanistic framework, geared primarily toward identifying critical hypotheses at the interface of behavior and demography for the benefit of population management.

Results/Conclusions

Individual space-use patterns determine the environmental domain an individual’s experiences (e.g., resources, conditions, risks, or competition) as a subset of the population’s environmental domain, which itself is a subset of the metapopulation’s environmental domain. The individual environmental domain dictates the individual’s physiological and informational states. Space-use behaviors are the set of actions the individual takes in response to these internal states – actions that are manifested in a specific environmental context as a set of space-use patterns. The individual’s environmental domain and internal states determine its survival probability and reproductive output. Collective survival and reproduction across individuals within a population comprises the population’s intrinsic rate of increase. Population growth rates, together with individual space-use patterns, influence the population’s environmental domain through density-dependent processes, including resource competition, dilution effects, and social interactions. Over a longer period, population growth rates and individual space-use patterns (through dispersal) also determine metapopulation dynamics and persistence. The conceptual framework I will present expatiates the mechanistic relationships between individual space-use and metapopulation demography, serving as a tool to generate empirical questions related to patterns of space-use, the processes that drive them, and the relationships between an individual’s space-use and metapopulation dynamics.