WHEN SOURCES BECOME SINKS: MIGRATIONAL MELTDOWN IN HETEROGENEOUS HABITATS

We consider the evolution of ecological specialization in a landscape with two discrete habitat types connected by migration, for example, a plant-insect system with two plant hosts. Using a quantitative genetic approach, we study the joint evolution of a quantitative character determining performan...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEvolution Vol. 55; no. 8; pp. 1520 - 1531
Main Authors Ronce, Ophélie, Kirkpatrick, Mark
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Society for the Study of Evolution 01.08.2001
Oxford University Press
Subjects
Animal Migration
Animals
Biological adaptation
Biological Evolution
Butterflies - genetics
Butterflies - physiology
Demography
Ecosystem
Environment
Evolution
Evolutionary genetics
Genetic Variation
Habitat selection
Habitats
Heterogeneity
Insects
local adaptation
Mathematics
migration
Models, Genetic
Phenotypes
Population genetics
Population size
REGULAR ARTICLES
source-sink dynamics
specialization
Wildlife habitats
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Summary:We consider the evolution of ecological specialization in a landscape with two discrete habitat types connected by migration, for example, a plant-insect system with two plant hosts. Using a quantitative genetic approach, we study the joint evolution of a quantitative character determining performance in each habitat together with the changes in the population density. We find that specialization on a single habitat evolves with intermediate migration rates, whereas a generalist species evolves with both very low and very large rates of movement between habitats. There is a threshold at which a small increase in the connectivity of the two habitats will result in dramatic decrease in the total population size and the nearly complete loss of use of one of the two habitats through a process of “migrational meltdown.” In some situations, equilibria corresponding to a specialist and a generalist species are simultaneously stable. Analysis of our model also shows cases of hysteresis in which small transient changes in the landscape structure or accidental demographic disturbances have irreversible effects on the evolution of specialization. Corresponding Editor: M. Whitlock
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ISSN:0014-3820
1558-5646
DOI:10.1554/0014-3820(2001)055[1520:WSBSMM]2.0.CO;2