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Population extinctions can increase metapopulation persistence

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 1, pages 1271–1278 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

Metapopulations persist when local populations are rapidly recolonized following local extinctions. Such persistence requires asynchrony; simultaneous crashes of all populations would leave no source of recolonization. We show theoretically and experimentally that catastrophic population extinctions themselves can promote metapopulation persistence, by preventing spatial synchrony and thus enhancing recolonization. We refer to this behaviour as the ‘spatial hydra effect’: as with the mythical hydra that grows two new heads when one is removed, extinctions can increase recolonization. The effect is robust, occurring in a wide range of theoretical models exhibiting cyclic or quasi-cyclic population dynamics. In a laboratory microcosm experiment using cyclic protist predator–prey metapopulations, catastrophic perturbations wiping out populations but leaving the patch otherwise unchanged increased metapopulation persistence when high dispersal rates would otherwise have led to spatially synchronous extinctions of all populations. We discuss several candidate examples of the spatial hydra effect in nature.

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Fig. 1: Effects of the dispersal rate and catastrophic local extinction rate on the mean predator metapopulation persistence time.
Fig. 2: Effects of the dispersal rate and catastrophic extinction rate on spatial synchrony.
Fig. 3: Metapopulation persistence time versus spatial synchrony.
Fig. 4: Metapopulations that spend more time at high occupancy collapse to extinction more rapidly when they do collapse.

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Acknowledgements

K. McCann and S. Cobey provided comments on an early draft. This work was supported by the High Performance Computing facilities operated by the Yale Center for Research Computing and its staff. This work was funded by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Discovery Grant to J.W.F.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

    Jeremy W. Fox, Morgan Cotroneo & Lilian Guan

  2. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    David Vasseur & Franz Simon

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  1. Jeremy W. Fox
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Contributions

J.W.F. conceived and designed the study and analysed the data. M.C. and L.G. collected the data. F.S. and D.V. conducted the model simulations with assistance from J.W.F. J.W.F. and D.V. wrote the paper with assistance from the other authors. In the author list, the authors are ordered by their overall contribution to the paper, starting with the author who contributed the most.

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Correspondence to Jeremy W. Fox.

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Fox, J.W., Vasseur, D., Cotroneo, M. et al. Population extinctions can increase metapopulation persistence. Nat Ecol Evol 1, 1271–1278 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0271-y

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