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2,911 results for “dispersal”
Data from: Effects of mis-alignment between dispersal traits and landscape structure on dispersal success in fragmented landscapes
Dispersal is fundamental to population dynamics and hence extinction risk. The dispersal success of animals depends on the biophysical structure of their environments and their biological traits; however, comparatively little is known about how evolutionary trade-offs among suites of biological traits affect dispersal potential. We developed a spatially explicit agent-based simulation model to evaluate the influence of trade-offs among a suite of biological traits on the dispersal success of vagile animals in fragmented landscapes. We specifically chose traits known to influence dispersal success: speed of movement, perceptual range, risk of predation, need to forage during dispersal, and amount of suitable habitat required for successful settlement in a patch. Using the metric of relative dispersal success rate, we assessed how the costs and benefits of evolutionary investment in these biological traits varied with landscape structure. In heterogeneous environments with low habitat availability and scattered habitat patches, individuals with more equal allocation across the trait spectrum dispersed most successfully. Our analyses suggest that the dispersal success of animals in heterogeneous environments is highly dependent on hierarchical interactions between trait trade-offs and the geometric configurations of the habitat patches in the landscapes through which they disperse. In an applied sense, our results indicate potential for ecological mis-alignment between species' evolved suites of dispersal-related traits and altered environmental conditions as a result of rapid global change. In many cases identifying the processes that shape patterns of animal dispersal, and the consequences of abiotic changes for these processes, will require consideration of complex relationships among a range of organism-specific and environmental factors.
Data from: Fungal community reveals less dispersal limitation and potentially more connected network than that of bacteria in bamboo forest soils
A central aim of current microbial ecology research is to investigate the mechanisms shaping the assembly of soil microbial communities. Despite the importance of bacterial and fungal mediation of carbon cycling in forest ecosystems, knowledge concerning their distribution patterns and underlying mechanisms remains insufficient. Here, soils were sampled from six bamboo forests across the main planting area of Moso bamboo in southern China. The bacterial and fungal diversities were assessed by sequencing 16S rRNA and ITS gene amplicons, respectively, with an Illumina MiSeq. Based on structural equation modeling, dispersal limitation had strongest impact on bacterial beta diversity, while the mean annual precipitation had a smaller impact by directly or indirectly mediating the soil organic carbon density. However, only the mean annual temperature and precipitation played direct roles in fungal beta diversity. Moreover, the co-occurrence network analyses revealed a possibly much higher network connectivity in the fungal network than in the bacteria. With less dispersal limitation, stronger environmental selection, and a potentially more connected network, the fungal community had more important roles in the soil carbon metabolisms in bamboo forests. Fungal beta diversity and the clustering coefficient explained approximately 14.4% and 6.1% of the variation in the carbon metabolic profiles among sites, respectively, but that of bacteria only explained approximately 1.7% and 1.8%, respectively. This study explored soil microbial spatial patterns along with the underlying mechanisms of dispersal limitation, selection, and connectivity of ecological networks, thus providing novel insights into the study of the distinct functional traits of different microbial taxa.
Data from: Patterns and processes of dispersal behaviour in arvicoline rodents
A good understanding of mammalian societies requires measuring patterns and comprehending processes of dispersal in each sex. We investigated dispersal behaviour in arvicoline rodents, a sub-family of mammals widespread in northern temperate environments and characterised by a multivoltine life cycle. In arvicoline rodents, variation in life history strategies occurs along a continuum from precocial to delayed maturation that reflects seasonal and ecological fluctuations. We compared dispersal across and within species focusing on the effects of external (condition-dependence) and internal factors (phenotype-dependence). Our data revealed substantial, unexplained variation between species for dispersal distances and a strong variation within species for both dispersal distance and fraction. Some methodological aspects explained variation across studies, which cautions against comparisons that do not control for them. Overall, the species under consideration display frequent short-distance dispersal events and extremely flexible dispersal strategies, but they also have hitherto unexpected capacity to disperse long distances. Female arvicolines are predominantly philopatric relative to males, but we found no clear association between the mating system and the degree of sex-bias in dispersal across species. Dispersal is a response to both various proximate and ultimate factors, including competition, inbreeding avoidance, mate searching, and habitat quality. In particular, our review suggests that costs and benefits experienced during transience and settlement are prime determinants of condition-dependence. Patterns of phenotype-dependent dispersal are idiosyncratic, except for a widespread association between an exploration/activity syndrome and natal dispersal. Consequences for population dynamics and genetic structures are discussed.
Data from: Extended dispersal kernels in a changing world: insights from statistics of extremes
Dispersal ecology is a topical discipline that involves understanding and predicting plant community responses to multiple drivers of global change. Propagule movements that entail long-distance dispersal (LDD) events are crucial for plants to reach and colonize suitable sites across fragmented landscapes. Yet, LDD events are extremely rare, and thus, obtaining reliable estimates of the maximum distances that propagules move across and of their frequency has been a long-lasting challenge in plant ecology. Recent advances in dispersal ecology have provided reliable records of dispersal distances, but they remain confined to focal populations, limiting our ability to infer the frequency and actual extent of LDD events across landscapes. In this study, we view LDD events as extreme values of a dispersal function, and we apply statistics of extremes to derive the frequency and extent of LDD events of simulated and empirical data sets. We first briefly explain the rationale behind statistics of extremes, and we then illustrate how dispersal ecology can benefit conceptually and analytically from applying extreme value analyses. We apply the block maxima approach to simulated seed shadows, and we apply the peak over a threshold method to empirical data sets that contain pollen and seed dispersal distances recorded for a population of Prunus mahaleb, an insect-pollinated and vertebrate-dispersed tree species. Diagnostic plots reveal a distance threshold of υ = 80 m for pollen grains and of υ = 170 m for dispersed seeds. Values that exceed the threshold fit a light-tailed distribution function for pollen and fit a fat-tailed Pareto distribution for seed dispersal distances. Both distribution functions estimate a low (but nonzero) conditional probability of reaching distant locations, extending well beyond the borders of our focal population as follows: Pr (X ≥ 1 km) = 9 × 10−5 for pollen grains and Pr (X ≥ 10 km) = 7 × 10−5 for dispersed seeds. Synthesis. Dispersal ecologists can take the most of their dispersal distance records by applying statistics of extremes to infer the probability of occurrence of extremely rare, but crucial, long distance dispersal events that reach locations well beyond focal populations.
Data from: Accelerating across the landscape: the energetic costs of natal dispersal in a large herbivore
1. Dispersal is a key mechanism enabling species to adjust their geographic range to rapid global change. However, dispersal is costly and environmental modifications are likely to modify the cost-benefit balance of individual dispersal decisions, for example, by decreasing functional connectivity. 2. Dispersal costs occur during departure, transience and settlement, and are levied in terms of energy, risk, time and lost opportunity, potentially influencing individual fitness. However, to the best of our knowledge, no study has yet quantified the energetic costs of dispersal across the dispersal period by comparing dispersing and philopatric individuals in the wild.3. Here, we employed animal-born bio-loggers on a relatively large sample (N = 105) of juvenile roe deer to estimate energy expenditure indexed using the vector of dynamic body acceleration (VeDBA) and mobility (distance travelled) in an intensively monitored population in the south west of France. We predicted that energy expenditure would be higher in dispersers compared to philopatric individuals. We expected costs to be i/ particularly high during transience, ii/ especially high in the more fragmented areas of the landscape, and iii/ concentrated during the night to avoid disturbance caused by human activity. 4. There were no differences in energy expenditure between dispersers and philopatric individuals during the pre-dispersal phase. However, dispersers expended around 22% more energy and travelled around 63% further per day than philopatric individuals during transience. Differences in energy expenditure were much less pronounced during the settlement phase. The costs of transience were almost uniquely confined to the dawn period, when dispersers spent 23% more energy and travelled 112% further than philopatric individuals. Finally, the energetic costs of transience per unit time and the total distance travelled to locate a suitable settlement range were higher in areas of high road density. 5. Our results provide strong support for the hypothesis that natal dispersal is energetically costly and indicate that transience is the most costly part of the process, particularly in fragmented landscapes. Further work is required to link dispersal costs with fitness components so as to understand the likely outcome of further environmental modifications on the evolution of dispersal behaviour.
Data from: Assortative mating counteracts the evolution of dispersal polymorphisms
Polymorphic dispersal strategies are found in many plant and animal species. An important question is how the genetic variation underlying such polymorphisms is maintained. Numerous mechanisms have been discussed, including kin competition or frequency-dependent selection. In the context of sympatric speciation events genetic and phenotypic variation is often assumed to be preserved by assortative mating. Thus, recently, this has been advocated as a possible mechanism leading to the evolution of dispersal polymorphisms. Here, we examine the role of assortative mating for the evolution of trade-off driven dispersal polymorphisms by modelling univoltine insect species in a metapopulation. We show that assortative mating does not favour the evolution of polymorphisms. On the contrary, assortative mating favours the evolution of an intermediate dispersal type and a uni-modal distribution of traits within populations. As an alternative mechanism dominance may explain the occurrence of two discrete morphs.
Data from: Competition-driven build-up of habitat isolation and selection favouring dispersal modification in a young avian hybrid zone
Competition-driven evolution of habitat isolation is an important mechanism of ecological speciation but empirical support for this process is often indirect. We examined how an on-going displacement of pied flycatchers from their preferred breeding habitat by collared flycatchers in a young secondary contact zone is associated with (a) access to an important food resource (caterpillar larvae), (b) immigration of pied flycatchers in relation to habitat quality, and (c) the risk of hybridization in relation to habitat quality. Over the past 12 years, the estimated access to caterpillar larvae biomass in the habitat surrounding the nests of pied flycatchers has decreased by a fifth due to shifted establishment possibilities, especially for immigrants. However, breeding in the high quality habitat has become associated with such a high risk of hybridization for pied flycatchers that overall selection currently favors pied flycatchers that were forced to immigrate into the poorer habitats (despite lower access to preferred food items). Our results show that competition-driven habitat segregation can lead to fast habitat isolation, which per se caused an opportunity for selection to act in favor of future "voluntarily" altered immigration patterns and possibly strengthened habitat isolation through reinforcement.
Data from: Using geography to infer the importance of dispersal for the synchrony of freshwater plankton
Spatial synchrony in population dynamics is a ubiquitous ecological phenomenon that can result from predator-prey interactions, synchronized environmental variation (Moran effects), or dispersal. Of these, dispersal historically has been the least well studied in natural systems, partly because of the difficulty in quantifying dispersal in situ. We hypothesized that dispersal routes of plankton were based on the major and consistent water current movements in Kentucky Lake, a large reservoir in western Kentucky, USA. Then, using 26-year time series collected at 16 locations, we used matrix regression techniques to test whether spatial heterogeneity in strengths of hypothesized dispersal predicted spatial patterns of synchrony of phytoplankton and zooplankton, thereby testing for evidence of dispersal as a possible mechanism of synchrony in this system. Nearly all taxa showed significant spatial synchrony that did not decline with increasing linear distance between locations. All taxa also showed substantial geographic structure in synchrony that was not explained by linear distance. Matrix regression revealed that our hypothesized matrix of dispersal pathways, which differed substantially from linear distance, was a significant predictor of spatial variability in synchrony in phytoplankton biomass, and Bosmina longirostris and Daphnia lumholtzi densities. Thus dispersal was a likely mechanism of synchrony for these taxa. Our hypothesized dispersal matrix was a significant predictor of spatial patterns of synchrony for these taxa even after accounting for numerous alternative possible mechanisms, including possible Moran effects through any of ten physical/abiotic constraints. Our findings indicate that statistically comparing hypothesized or measured dispersal pathway information to synchrony data via matrix regressions can provide valuable evidence for the importance of dispersal as a mechanism of spatial synchrony.
Data from: Dispersal promotes compensatory dynamics and stability in forced metacommunities
Understanding the factors that govern the stability of populations and communities has gained increasing importance as habitat fragmentation and environmental perturbations continue to escalate due to human activities. Dispersal is commonly viewed as essential to the maintenance of diversity in spatially subdivided communities, but few experiments have explored how dispersal interacts with the spatiotemporal components of environmental perturbations to determine community-level stability. We examined these processes using an experimental planktonic system composed of three competing species of zooplankton. We subjected zooplankton metacommunities to varying levels of dispersal and pH perturbations that varied in their degree of spatial synchrony. We show that dispersal can reverse the destabilizing effects of environmental forcing when perturbations are spatially asynchronous. Asynchrony in pH perturbations generated spatially and temporally varying species refugia that promoted source-sink dynamics and allowed prolonged persistence of zooplankton species that were otherwise extirpated in synchronously varying metacommunities. This, in turn, increased local species diversity, promoted compensatory population dynamics and enhanced local community-level stability. Our results indicate that patterns of spatial covariation in environmental variability are critical to predicting the effects of dispersal on the dynamics and persistence of communities.
Data from: Optimal management strategy of insecticide resistance under various insect life histories: heterogeneous timing of selection and inter-patch dispersal
Although theoretical studies have shown that the mixture strategy, which uses multiple toxins simultaneously, can effectively delay the evolution of insecticide resistance, whether it is the optimal management under different insect life histories and insecticide types remains unknown. To test the robustness of the management strategy over the life histories, we developed a series of simulation models which cover almost all the diploid insect types and have the same basic structure describing pest population dynamics and resistance evolution with discrete time-steps. For each of two insecticidal toxins, one-locus two-allele autosomal inheritance of resistance was assumed. The simulations demonstrated the optimality of the mixture strategy either when insecticide efficacy was incomplete or when some part of the population disperses between patches before mating. The rotation strategy, which uses one insecticide on one pest generation and a different one on the next, did not differ from sequential usage in the time to resistance, except when dominance was low. It was the optimal strategy when insecticide efficacy was high and pre-mating selection and dispersal occur.
Data from: Impacts of dispersal on rapid adaptation and dynamic stability of Daphnia in fluctuating environments
Prior ecological research has shown that spatial processes can enhance the temporal stability of populations in fluctuating environments. Less explored is the effect of dispersal on rapid adaptation and its concomitant impact on population dynamics. For asexually reproducing populations, theory predicts that dispersal in fluctuating environments can facilitate asynchrony among clones and enhance stability by reducing temporal variability of total population abundance. This effect is predicted when clones exhibit heritable variation in environmental optima and when fluctuations occur asynchronously among patches. We tested this in the field using artificial ponds and metapopulations composed of a diverse assemblage of <i>Daphnia pulex</i> clones. We directly manipulated dispersal presence/absence and environmental fluctuations in the form of nutrient pulses. Consistent with predictions, dispersal enhanced temporal asynchrony among clones in the presence of nutrient pulses; this in turn stabilized population dynamics. This effect only emerged when patches experienced spatially asynchronous nutrient pulses (dispersal had no effect when patches were synchronously pulsed). Clonal asynchrony was driven by strong positive selection for a single clone that exhibited a performance advantage under conditions of low resource availability. Our work highlights the importance of dispersal as a driver of eco-evolutionary dynamics and population stability in variable environments.
Data from: Cooperation-mediated plasticity in dispersal and colonization
Kin selection theory predicts that costly cooperative behaviors evolve most readily when directed toward kin. Dispersal plays a controversial role in the evolution of cooperation: dispersal decreases local population relatedness and thus opposes the evolution of cooperation, but limited dispersal increases kin competition and can negate the benefits of cooperation. Theoretical work has suggested that plasticity of dispersal, where individuals can adjust their dispersal decisions according to the social context, might help resolve this paradox and promote the evolution of cooperation. Here, we experimentally tested the hypothesis that conditional dispersal decisions are mediated by a cooperative strategy: we quantified the density-dependent dispersal decisions and subsequent colonization efficiency from single cells or groups of cells among 6 genetic strains of the unicellular Tetrahymena thermophila that differ in their aggregation level (high, medium and low), a behavior associated with cooperation strategy. We found that the plastic reaction norms of dispersal rate relative to density differed according to aggregation level: highly aggregative genotypes showed negative density-dependent dispersal, whereas low-aggregation genotypes showed maximum dispersal rates at intermediate density, and medium-aggregation genotypes showed density-independent dispersal with intermediate dispersal rate. Dispersers from highly aggregative genotypes had specialized long-distance dispersal phenotypes, contrary to low-aggregation genotypes; medium-aggregation genotypes showing intermediate dispersal phenotype. Moreover, highly aggregation genotypes showed evidence for beneficial kin-cooperation during dispersal. Our experimental results should help to resolve the evolutionary conflict between cooperation and dispersal: cooperative individuals are expected to avoid kin-competition by dispersing long distances, but maintain the benefits of cooperation by dispersing in small groups.
Data from: Mate finding, Allee effects, and selection for sex-biased dispersal
Although dispersal requires context-dependent decision-making in three distinct stages (emigration, transit, immigration), these decisions are commonly ignored in simple models of dispersal. For sexually reproducing organisms, mate availability is an important factor in dispersal decisions. Difficulty finding mates can lead to an Allee effect where population growth decreases at low densities. Surprisingly, theoretical studies on mate finding and on sex-biased dispersal produce opposing predictions: in the former one sex is predicted to move less if the other sex evolves to search more, whereas in the latter mate-finding difficulties can select for less sex bias in dispersal when mate finding occurs after dispersal. Here we develop a pair of models to examine the joint evolution of dispersal and settlement behaviour. Our first model resolves the apparent contradiction from the mate-search and dispersal literatures. Our second model demonstrates that the relationship between mating system and sex-biased dispersal is more complex than a simple contrast between resource-defence monogamy and female-defence polygyny. Our results highlight that a key factor is the timing of mating relative to dispersal (before, during, or after). We also show that although movement has the potential to alleviate a mate-finding Allee effect, in some cases it can actually exacerbate the effect.
Data from: When to cut your losses: dispersal allocation in an asexual filamentous fungus in response to competition
Fungal communities often form on ephemeral substrates and dispersal is critical for the persistence of fungi among the islands that form these metacommunities. Within each substrate, competition for space and resources is vital for the local persistence of fungi. The capacity to detect and respond by dispersal away from unfavorable conditions may confer higher fitness in fungi. Informed dispersal theory posits that organisms are predicted to detect information about their surroundings which may trigger a dispersal response. As such, we expect that fungi will increase allocation to dispersal in the presence of a strong competitor. In a laboratory setting, we tested how competition with other filamentous fungi affected the development of conidial pycnidiomata (asexual fruiting bodies) in Phacidium lacerum over 10 days. Phacidium lacerum was not observed to produce more asexual fruiting bodies or produce them earlier when experiencing interspecific competition with other filamentous fungi. However, we found that a trade‐off existed between growth rate and allocation to dispersal. We also observed a defensive response to specific interspecific competitors in the form of hyphal melanization of the colony which may have an impact on the growth rate and dispersal trade‐off. Our results suggest that P. lacerum have the capacity to detect and respond to competitors by changing their allocation to dispersal and growth. However, allocation to defence may come at a cost to growth and dispersal. Thus, it is likely that optimal life history allocation in fungi constrained to ephemeral resources will depend on the competitive strength of neighbors surrounding them.
Data from: Functional traits in red flour beetles: the dispersal phenotype is associated with leg length but not body size nor metabolic rate
Individuals vary in their ability to disperse. Much of this variation can be described by covarying phenotypic traits that are related to dispersal (constituting the 'dispersal phenotype' or 'dispersal syndrome'), but the nature of the associations among these traits is not well understood. Unravelling the associations among traits that potentially constitute the dispersal phenotype provides a foundation for understanding evolutionary trade-offs due to variation in dispersal. Here, we tested five predictions pertaining to the relationships among physiological, morphological and movement traits that are associated with dispersal, using a species with a long history as a laboratory model for studying ecological phenomena, red flour beetles (Tribolium castaneum). We identified a dominant axis of movement ability that describes variation in dispersal-related movement traits. Individuals that scored positively on this axis moved at higher speed, travelled longer distances, had lower movement intermittency and dispersed quicker to a specified area. Relative leg length, but not body size nor routine metabolic rate related positively with movement ability, indicating a likely mechanistic relationship between increased stride length and movement ability. Our data suggest that the dispersal phenotype may be more strongly linked to morphological traits than physiological ones. We demonstrate that associations among many functional traits do not necessarily conform to a priori expectations, and predict that the substantial intraspecific variation in trait values may be important for selection. Movement is a complex behavioural trait, but it has a mechanistic basis in locomotor morphology that warrants further exploration.
Data from: Spatially correlated extinctions select for less emigration but larger dispersal distances in the spider mite Tetranychus urticae
Dispersal is a central process to almost all species on earth, as it connects spatially structured populations and thereby increases population persistence. Dispersal is subject to (rapid) evolution and local patch extinctions are an important selective force in this context. In contrast to the randomly distributed local extinctions considered in most theoretical studies, habitat fragmentation or other anthropogenic interventions will lead to spatially correlated extinction patterns. Under such conditions natural selection is thought to lead to more long-distance dispersal, but this theoretical prediction has not yet been verified empirically. We test this hypothesis in experimental spatially structured populations of the spider mite Tetranychus urticae and supplement these empirical results with insights from an individual-based evolutionary model. We demonstrate that the spatial correlation of local extinctions changes the entire distribution of dispersal distances (dispersal kernel) and selects for overall less emigration but more long-distance dispersal.
Data from: Current approaches using genetic distances produce poor estimates of landscape resistance to interindividual dispersal
Landscape resistance reflects how difficult it is for genes to move across an area with particular attributes (e.g., land cover, slope). An increasingly popular approach to estimate resistance uses Mantel and partial Mantel tests or causal modeling to relate observed genetic distances to effective distances under alternative sets of resistance parameters. Relatively few alternative sets of resistance parameters are tested, leading to relatively poor coverage of the parameter space. Although this approach does not explicitly model key stochastic processes of gene flow, including mating, dispersal, drift, and inheritance, bias and precision of the resulting resistance parameters have not been assessed. We formally describe the most commonly used model as a set of equations and provide a formal approach for estimating resistance parameters. Our optimization finds the maximum Mantel r when an optimum exists, and identifies the same resistance values as current approaches when the alternatives evaluated are near the optimum. Unfortunately, even where an optimum existed, estimates from the most commonly used model were imprecise and were typically much smaller than the simulated true resistance to dispersal. Causal modeling using Mantel significance tests also typically failed to support the true resistance to dispersal values. For a large range of scenarios, current approaches using a simple correlational model between genetic and effective distances do not yield accurate estimates of resistance to dispersal. We suggest that analysts consider the processes important to gene flow for their study species, model those processes explicitly, and evaluate the quality of estimates resulting from their model.
Data from: Species selection favors dispersive life histories in sea slugs, but higher per-offspring investment drives shifts to short-lived larvae
For 40 years, paleontological studies of marine gastropods have suggested that species selection favors lineages with short-lived (lecithotrophic) larvae, which are less dispersive than long-lived (planktotrophic) larvae. Although lecithotrophs appeared to speciate more often and accumulate over time in some groups, lecithotrophy also increased extinction rates, and tests for state-dependent diversification were never performed. Molecular phylogenies of diverse groups instead suggested lecithotrophs accumulate without diversifying due to frequent, unidirectional character change. Although lecithotrophy has repeatedly originated in most phyla, no adult trait has been correlated with shifts in larval type. Thus, both the evolutionary origins of lecithotrophy and its consequences for patterns of species richness remain poorly understood. Here, we test hypothesized links between development mode and evolutionary rates using likelihood-based methods and a phylogeny of 202 species of gastropod molluscs in Sacoglossa, a clade of herbivorous sea slugs. Evolutionary quantitative genetics modeling and stochastic character mapping supported 27 origins of lecithotrophy. Tests for correlated evolution revealed lecithotrophy evolved more often in lineages investing in extra-embryonic yolk, the first adult trait associated with shifts in development mode across a group. However, contrary to predictions from paleontological studies, species selection actually favored planktotrophy; most extant lecithotrophs originated through recent character change, and did not subsequently diversify. Increased offspring provisioning in planktotrophs thus favored shifts to short-lived larvae, which led to short-lived lineages over macroevolutionary time scales. These findings challenge long-standing assumptions about the effects of alternative life histories in the sea. Species selection can explain the long-term persistence of planktotrophy, the ancestral state in most clades, despite frequent transitions to lecithotrophy.
Data from: Comparative population genomics reveals key barriers to dispersal in Southern Ocean penguins
The mechanisms that determine patterns of species dispersal are important factors in the production and maintenance of biodiversity. Understanding these mechanisms helps to forecast the responses of species to environmental change. Here we used a comparative framework and genome-wide data obtained through RAD-seq to compare the patterns of connectivity among breeding colonies for five penguin species with shared ancestry, overlapping distributions, and differing ecological niches, allowing an examination of the intrinsic and extrinsic barriers governing dispersal patterns. Our findings show that at-sea range and oceanography underlie patterns of dispersal in these penguins. The pelagic niche of emperor (Aptenodytes forsteri), king (A. patagonicus), Adélie (Pygoscelis adeliae) and chinstrap (P. antarctica) penguins facilitates gene flow over thousands of kilometres. In contrast, the coastal niche of gentoo penguins (P. papua) limits dispersal, resulting in population divergences. Oceanographic fronts also act as dispersal barriers to some extent. We recommend that forecasts of extinction risk incorporate dispersal and that management units are defined by at-sea range and oceanography in species lacking genetic data.
Data from: Diet complementation as a frequency‐dependent mechanism conferring advantages to rare plants via dispersal
1. We used an agent-based model to test the hypothesis that diet complementation by frugivores can promote the persistence of rare plant species in communities (DCH). 2. Models simulated bird movement, frugivory, seed-dispersal, and plant recruitment on landscapes that differed in their degree of fragmentation and in their degree of fruiting species mixing at the scale of frugivores' foraging decisions. 3. Diet complementation promoted the dispersal of rare-species without the need of a priori preference from birds. The effects of landscape structure on the dispersal of rare plants were small (<5%) compared to positive effects of diet complementation because birds tracked the nutrients contained in rare fruits to balance their diets. However, resource-tracking of rare fruits increased foraging costs up to 20% of net energy intakes. 4. During post-dispersal stages, density-dependent mortality only conferred advantages to rare plants when located within hetero-specific plant patches. Still, thanks to rare-biased dispersal, rare plants showed the highest seed dispersal effectiveness irrespectively of landscape configuration. 5. Our theoretical approach presents a behavioral mechanism by which fruit choice can act as a frequency-dependent mechanism conferring rare-species advantages as important as classic post-dispersal density-dependent processes. 6. We hope that this study stimulates future work aimed at evaluating the importance of diet complementation in structuring the composition and spatial patterning of plant communities.
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Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
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The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
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