Allee-like effects in metapopulation dynamics

The existences of the Allee effect at the local population level and of the Allee-like effect at the meta-population level are important for both ecology and conservation. Although there have been a great many papers on the Allee effect, they have mainly referred to only local populations and have not dealt with the relationship between the two. In this paper, we begin with local population dynamics and then construct a model including both local population and metapopulation dynamics. Then we simulate with computer at these two levels. The results indicate that the Allee-like effect in a metapopulation may emerge from the imposed Allee effect at the local population level. This threshold fraction Of occupied patches below which the metapopulation goes extinct is seriously affected by the per capita migration rate, the survival rate during migration and the initial population size on the occupied patches. We also find that severe demographic stochasticity may compound the metapopulation extinction risk posed by the Allee effect. These conclusions are helpful for nature conservation, especially for the preservation of rare species. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.