Bet-hedging strategies in expanding populations
Paula Villa Mart\'in, Miguel A. Mu\~noz, Simone Pigolotti

TL;DR
This paper develops a theoretical framework for bet-hedging strategies in populations expanding into new environments, showing that phenotypic diversification is more advantageous during range expansions than in well-mixed populations, especially under slow environmental fluctuations.
Contribution
It introduces a novel theory of bet-hedging in spatially expanding populations, highlighting the conditions under which diversification is favored over well-mixed scenarios.
Findings
Bet-hedging is more advantageous in range expansions than in well-mixed populations.
Spatial environmental fluctuations favor bet-hedging more than temporal fluctuations.
Rapid environmental variation negates the benefits of bet-hedging.
Abstract
In ecology, species can mitigate their extinction risks in uncertain environments by diversifying individual phenotypes. This observation is quantified by the theory of bet-hedging, which provides a reason for the degree of phenotypic diversity observed even in clonal populations. The theory of bet-hedging in well-mixed populations is rather well developed. However, many species underwent range expansions during their evolutionary history, and the importance of phenotypic diversity in such scenarios still needs to be understood. In this paper, we develop a theory of bet-hedging for populations colonizing new, unknown environments that fluctuate either in space or time. In this case, we find that bet-hedging is a more favorable strategy than in well-mixed populations. For slow rates of variation, temporal and spatial fluctuations lead to different outcomes. In spatially fluctuating…
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Taxonomy
TopicsEvolution and Genetic Dynamics · Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies · Genetic diversity and population structure
