Sex-specific spatio-temporal variability in reproductive success promotes the evolution of sex-biased dispersal

Andreas Gros, Hans Joachim Poethke and Thomas Hovestadt

Theoretical Population Biology, 2009, vol. 76, issue 1, 13-18

Abstract: Inbreeding depression, asymmetries in costs or benefits of dispersal, and the mating system have been identified as potential factors underlying the evolution of sex-biased dispersal. We use individual-based simulations to explore how the mating system and demographic stochasticity influence the evolution of sex-specific dispersal in a metapopulation with females competing over breeding sites, and males over mating opportunities. Comparison of simulation results for random mating with those for a harem system (locally, a single male sires all offspring) reveal that even extreme variance in local male reproductive success (extreme male competition) does not induce male-biased dispersal. The latter evolves if the between-patch variance in reproductive success is larger for males than females. This can emerge due to demographic stochasticity if the habitat patches are small. More generally, members of a group of individuals experiencing higher spatio-temporal variance in fitness expectations may evolve to disperse with greater probability than others.

Keywords: Sex-biased dispersal; Demographic stochasticity; Metapopulation; Individual-based simulation; Sex-specific competition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:thpobi:v:76:y:2009:i:1:p:13-18

DOI: 10.1016/j.tpb.2009.03.002

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