IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pcbi00/1004251.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Metapopulation Persistence in Random Fragmented Landscapes

Author

Listed:
  • Jacopo Grilli
  • György Barabás
  • Stefano Allesina

Abstract

Habitat destruction and land use change are making the world in which natural populations live increasingly fragmented, often leading to local extinctions. Although local populations might undergo extinction, a metapopulation may still be viable as long as patches of suitable habitat are connected by dispersal, so that empty patches can be recolonized. Thus far, metapopulations models have either taken a mean-field approach, or have modeled empirically-based, realistic landscapes. Here we show that an intermediate level of complexity between these two extremes is to consider random landscapes, in which the patches of suitable habitat are randomly arranged in an area (or volume). Using methods borrowed from the mathematics of Random Geometric Graphs and Euclidean Random Matrices, we derive a simple, analytic criterion for the persistence of the metapopulation in random fragmented landscapes. Our results show how the density of patches, the variability in their value, the shape of the dispersal kernel, and the dimensionality of the landscape all contribute to determining the fate of the metapopulation. Using this framework, we derive sufficient conditions for the population to be spatially localized, such that spatially confined clusters of patches act as a source of dispersal for the whole landscape. Finally, we show that a regular arrangement of the patches is always detrimental for persistence, compared to the random arrangement of the patches. Given the strong parallel between metapopulation models and contact processes, our results are also applicable to models of disease spread on spatial networks.Author Summary: Like the hundreds of paintings of water lilies by Monet, any two landscapes in which a metapopulation dwells are different, as the size, shape and location of the patches of suitable habitat (the lilies), distributed over a inhospitable background (the water) vary among landscapes. Yet, as all the paintings depict the same pond in Giverny, different fragmented landscapes could have the same value to a metapopulation. Here we ask what are the key features we should measure to predict persistence of metapopulations inhabiting fragmented landscapes, and show that few quantities determine the fate of metapopulations—so that two very different-looking landscapes could lead to the same likelihood of persistence. We also show that regular arrangements of the patches in space are detrimental for persistence, and that the typical behavior of metapopulations close to extinction is to be mostly localized in a confined region of the landscape.

Suggested Citation

  • Jacopo Grilli & György Barabás & Stefano Allesina, 2015. "Metapopulation Persistence in Random Fragmented Landscapes," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(5), pages 1-13, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pcbi00:1004251
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004251
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004251
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004251&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004251?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ilkka Hanski & Otso Ovaskainen, 2000. "The metapopulation capacity of a fragmented landscape," Nature, Nature, vol. 404(6779), pages 755-758, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Liao, Limei & Shen, Yang & Liao, Jinbao, 2020. "Robustness of dispersal network structure to patch loss," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 424(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Laguna, M.F. & Abramson, G. & Kuperman, M.N. & Lanata, J.L. & Monjeau, J.A., 2015. "Mathematical model of livestock and wildlife: Predation and competition under environmental disturbances," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 309, pages 110-117.
    2. Joyce Maschinski & Michael Ross & Hong Liu & Joe O’Brien & Eric Wettberg & Kristin Haskins, 2011. "Sinking ships: conservation options for endemic taxa threatened by sea level rise," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 107(1), pages 147-167, July.
    3. Vuilleumier, Séverine & Fontanillas, Pierre, 2007. "Landscape structure affects dispersal in the greater white-toothed shrew: Inference between genetic and simulated ecological distances," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 201(3), pages 369-376.
    4. Drielsma, Michael & Love, Jamie, 2021. "An equitable method for evaluating habitat amount and potential occupancy," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 440(C).
    5. Cornell, Stephen J. & Ovaskainen, Otso, 2008. "Exact asymptotic analysis for metapopulation dynamics on correlated dynamic landscapes," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 74(3), pages 209-225.
    6. Christensen, Claire & Albert, István & Grenfell, Bryan & Albert, Réka, 2010. "Disease dynamics in a dynamic social network," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 389(13), pages 2663-2674.
    7. Eriksson, A. & Elías-Wolff, F. & Mehlig, B., 2013. "Metapopulation dynamics on the brink of extinction," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 101-122.
    8. d’Acampora, Bárbara H.A. & Higueras, Ester & Román, Emilia, 2018. "Combining different metrics to measure the ecological connectivity of two mangrove landscapes in the Municipality of Florianópolis, Southern Brazil," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 384(C), pages 103-110.
    9. Bodin, Örjan & Saura, Santiago, 2010. "Ranking individual habitat patches as connectivity providers: Integrating network analysis and patch removal experiments," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 221(19), pages 2393-2405.
    10. Zhouqiao Ren & Jianhua He & Qiaobing Yue, 2021. "Assessing the Impact of Urban Expansion on Surrounding Forested Landscape Connectivity across Space and Time," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-14, April.
    11. Bauer, Dana Marie & Swallow, Stephen K. & Paton, Peter W.C., 2010. "Cost-effective species conservation in exurban communities: A spatial analysis," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 180-202, April.
    12. Ohlmann, Marc & Munoz, François & Massol, François & Thuiller, Wilfried, 2024. "Assessing mutualistic metacommunity capacity by integrating spatial and interaction networks," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 22-39.
    13. Peck, Steven L., 2012. "Networks of habitat patches in tsetse fly control: Implications of metapopulation structure on assessing local extinction probabilities," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 246(C), pages 99-102.
    14. Vuilleumier, Séverine & Possingham, Hugh P., 2012. "Interacting populations in heterogeneous environments," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 228(C), pages 96-105.
    15. Gaaff, Aris & Reinhard, Stijn, 2012. "Incorporating the value of ecological networks into cost–benefit analysis to improve spatially explicit land-use planning," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 66-74.
    16. Munoz, François & Cheptou, Pierre-Olivier & Kjellberg, Finn, 2007. "Spectral analysis of simulated species distribution maps provides insights into metapopulation dynamics," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 205(3), pages 314-322.
    17. Hashem Althagafi & Sergei Petrovskii, 2021. "Metapopulation Persistence and Extinction in a Fragmented Random Habitat: A Simulation Study," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(18), pages 1-16, September.
    18. Bauer, Dana Marie & Swallow, Stephen K., 2013. "Conserving metapopulations in human-altered landscapes at the urban–rural fringe," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 159-170.
    19. J Nevil Amos & Andrew F Bennett & Ralph Mac Nally & Graeme Newell & Alexandra Pavlova & James Q Radford & James R Thomson & Matt White & Paul Sunnucks, 2012. "Predicting Landscape-Genetic Consequences of Habitat Loss, Fragmentation and Mobility for Multiple Species of Woodland Birds," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(2), pages 1-12, February.
    20. M. Heino & I. Hanski, 2000. "Evolution of Migration Rate in a Spatially Realistic Metapopulation Model," Working Papers ir00044, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pcbi00:1004251. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ploscompbiol (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.