Self-segregation in heterogeneous metapopulation landscapes

TL;DR

This paper introduces a network-inspired individual-based model demonstrating how core-periphery network structures lead to spontaneous habitat vacancy and population segregation, providing insights into habitat fragmentation and speciation.

Contribution

It presents a novel self-segregation model showing how network topology influences habitat vacancy and population patterns, aligning with observed ecological phenomena.

Findings

Core-periphery networks induce vacant patches and population segregation.

Quantisation of vacant patches occurs with continuous changes in system mass.

Model reproduces habitat vacancy observed in Glanville fritillary butterfly.

Abstract

Complex interactions are at the root of the population dynamics of many natural systems, particularly for being responsible for the allocation of species and individuals across apposite niches of the ecological landscapes. On the other side, the randomness that unavoidably characterises complex systems has increasingly challenged the niche paradigm providing alternative neutral theoretical models. We introduce a network-inspired metapopulation individual-based model (IBM), hereby named self-segregation, where the density of individuals in the hosting patches (local habitats) drives the individuals spatial assembling while still constrained by nodes' saturation. In particular, we prove that the core-periphery structure of the networked landscape triggers the spontaneous emergence of vacant habitat patches, which segregate the population in multistable patterns of isolated (sub)communities separated by empty patches. Furthermore, a quantisation effect in the number of vacant patches is observed once the total system mass varies continuously, emphasising thus a striking feature of the robustness of population stationary distributions. Notably, our model reproduces the patch vacancy found in the fragmented habitat of the Glanville fritillary butterfly Melitaea cinxia, an endemic species of the Aland islands. We argue that such spontaneous breaking of the natural habitat supports the concept of the highly contentious (Grinnellian) niche vacancy and also suggests a new mechanism for the endogeneous habitat fragmentation and consequently the peripatric speciation.