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Population spread in patchy landscapes under a strong Allee effect

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Abstract

Many species of invasive insects establish and spread in regions around the world, causing enormous economical and environmental damage, in particular in forests. Some of these insects are subject to an Allee effect whereby the population must surpass a certain threshold in order to establish. Recent studies have examined the possibility of exploiting an Allee effect to improve existing control strategies. Forests and most other ecosystems show natural spatial variation, and human activities frequently increase the degree of spatial heterogeneity. It is therefore imperative to understand how the interplay between this spatial variation and individual movement behavior affects the overall speed of spread of an invasion. To this end, we study an integrodifference equation model in a patchy landscape and with Allee growth dynamics. Movement behavior of individuals varies according to landscape quality. Our study focuses on how the speed of the resulting traveling periodic wave depends on the interaction between landscape fragmentation, patch-dependent dispersal, and Allee population dynamics.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Gabriel Maciel for many insightful discussions. JM gratefully acknowledges graduate scholarship from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada. AG was partially supported by the work-study program at the University of Ottawa. FL is supported by a Discovery grant from NSERC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, K1N 6N5, Canada

    Jeffrey Musgrave & Alexandre Girard

  2. Department of Mathematics and Statistics and Department of Biology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, K1N 6N5, Canada

    Frithjof Lutscher

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  1. Jeffrey Musgrave
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  2. Alexandre Girard
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  3. Frithjof Lutscher
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Correspondence to Frithjof Lutscher.

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Musgrave, J., Girard, A. & Lutscher, F. Population spread in patchy landscapes under a strong Allee effect. Theor Ecol 8, 313–326 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12080-015-0252-1

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