Are anomalous invasion speeds robust to demographic stochasticity?

ABSTRACT: Two important issues for conservation are the range expansion of species as a result of climate change and the invasion of exotic species. Being able to predict the rate at which species spread is key for successful management. In deterministic models, the invasion speed of a polymorphic population can be faster than that of any of the component phenotypes, and these "anomalous" invasion speeds persist even when the mutation rate between phenotypes is vanishingly small. Here we investigate whether the same phenomenon is observed in a model with demographic stochasticity. The model that we use is discrete in time and space and we carry out numerical simulations to determine the invasion speed of a population that has two morphs which differ in their dispersal abilities. We find that anomalo

SUBMITTER: Elliott EC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3713005 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature