The timing of life history events in the presence of soft disturbances

DOI10.1016/J.JTBI.2015.10.028zbMATH Open1343.92391arXiv1504.04272OpenAlexW1637942353WikidataQ31022307 ScholiaQ31022307MaRDI QIDQ304785FDOQ304785

Authors: Fabio Zucca, Roberto Ambrosini, Daniela Bertacchi 

Publication date: 26 August 2016

Published in: Journal of Theoretical Biology (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We study a model for the evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) used by biological populations for choosing the time of life-history events, such as migration and breeding. In our model we accounted for both intra-species competition (early individuals have a competitive advantage) and a disturbance which strikes at a random time, killing a fraction $1-p$ of the population. Disturbances include spells of bad weather, such as freezing or heavily raining days. It has been shown in Iwasa and Levin (1995), that when $p=0$, then the ESS is a mixed strategy, where individuals wait for a certain time and afterwards start arriving (or breeding) every day. We remove the constraint $p=0$ and show that if $0<p<1$ then the ESS still implies a mixed choice of times, but strong competition may lead to a massive arrival at the earliest time possible of a fraction of the population, while the rest will arrive throughout the whole period during which the disturbance may occur. More precisely, given $p$, there is a threshold for the competition parameter $a$, above which massive arrivals occur and below which there is a behaviour as in Iwasa and Levin (1995). We study the behaviour of the ESS and of the average fitness of the population, depending on the parameters involved. We also discuss how the population may be affected by climate change, in two respects: first, how the ESS should change under the new climate and whether this change implies an increase of the average fitness; second, which is the impact of the new climate on a population that still follows the old strategy. We show that, at least under some conditions, extreme weather events imply a temporary decrease of the average fitness (thus an increasing mortality). If the population adapts to the new climate, the survivors may have a larger fitness.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1504.04272

Recommendations

• Variable timing of reproduction in unpredictable environments: Adaption of flood plain plants.
• On the evolution of the timing of reproduction
• Life histories with lottery competition in a stochastic environment: ESSs which do not prevail
• On the evolution of the timing of reproduction with non-equilibrium resident dynamics
• ESS germination strategies in randomly varying environments. I. Logistic- type models

zbMATH Keywords

phenologyclimate changeevolutionarily stable strategyfitnessextreme events

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Problems related to evolution (92D15) Population dynamics (general) (92D25)

Cites Work

• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Mathematical population genetics. I: Theoretical introduction.
• Stochastic orders
• The importance of being discrete (and spatial)
• From Individual Stochastic Processes to Macroscopic Models in Adaptive Evolution
• Critical Behaviors and Critical Values of Branching Random Walks on Multigraphs
• Stochastic spatial models of host-pathogen and host-mutualist interactions. I
• Characterization of critical values of branching random walks on weighted graphs through infinite-type branching processes
• Recurrence for branching Markov chains
• Variable timing of reproduction in unpredictable environments: Adaption of flood plain plants.
• Mass extinctions: an alternative to the Allee effect
• Variability in the evolutionarily stable seasonal timing of germination and maturation of annuals and the mode of competition
• The branching random walk and contact process on Galton-Watson and nonhomogeneous trees
• Branching random walks and multi-type contact-processes on the percolation cluster of \(\mathbb{Z}^{d}\)
• Ecological equilibrium for restrained branching random walks
• Persistent and susceptible bacteria with individual deaths
• Bacterial persistence: a winning strategy?
• Contact Process with Destruction of Cubes and Hyperplanes: Forest Fires Versus Tornadoes
• A self-regulating and patch subdivided population
• The role of space in the exploitation of resources
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Approximating Critical Parameters of Branching Random Walks
• The role of dispersal in interacting patches subject to an Allee effect
• Survival, extinction and approximation of discrete-time branching random walks
• Contact and voter processes on the infinite percolation cluster as models of host-symbiont interactions
• Coexistence for a multitype contact process with seasons

Cited In (2)

• Variable timing of reproduction in unpredictable environments: Adaption of flood plain plants.
• Title not available (Why is that?)

This page was built for publication: The timing of life history events in the presence of soft disturbances

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q304785)