Dispersal and good habitat quality promote neutral genetic diversity in metapopulations (Q2659804)

This article studies a model of neutral genetic diversity and its interactions with environment quality. The model consists of a metapopulation consisting either of species of haploid individuals, or equivalently of genes. The main result of the paper is an analytical formula that links dispersal and environment quality to neutral evolution. This is part of Theorem 1: there is a unique fixed point for their model, and all solutions converge towards it exponentially. This fixed point, the asymptotic proportion \(p^*\) of each species in the metapopulation, is given by equation (7). They also derive expressions for the exponential rate at which the proportions approach \(p^*\). They list several applications, including a number of phase diagrams, and comparisons to agent-based simulations. This paper is most relevant to theoretical ecologists. The authors also suggest that it may be of interest to applied mathematicians, as the proof technique for theorem 1 may be applicable to other systems of ordinary differential equations.