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Free keywords:
sex-biased dispersal, demographic stochasticity, metapopulation, individual-based simulation, sex-specific competition
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 between-patch variance in reproductive success is larger for males than females. This can emerge due to
demographic stochasticity if 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.
