The influence of exploration and learning abilities on dispersal dynamics

• Applicant: Dr. Jannis Liedtke
• Subject Area: Sensory and Behavioural Biology ; Ecology and Biodiversity of Animals and Ecosystems, Organismic Interactions
• Term: from 2017 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 394327820

Dispersal describes the process of animals leaving their birthplace to settle and breed in a new area. For long it was assumed that dispersal is an unconditional process in which a fixed number of individuals will emigrate and try to make a living in a new location. More recently it has been suggested that the decision to take the risk of dispersal is influenced by a variety of factors. Animals may be driven by competition with conspecifics, high predation pressure or changing abiotic conditions. Moreover, the influence of these external factors will depend on the individual’s condition. Thus, the probability to disperse will depend on both: external and internal conditions. One relevant aspect in this regard is the exploration tendency of individuals; i.e. how much they move around and inspect their environment. Another relevant characteristic is learning ability which enables animals to handle new situations. Particularly the latter could be very helpful to successfully settle and finally reproduce in new areas. Theoretical and empirical findings suggest that exploration tendency and learning ability may evolve and develop in dependency with one another. However, this correlation might be positive or negative, depending itself on environmental conditions such as predation risk or environmental complexity. Surprisingly, learning ability and its connection to exploration have been largely ignored when investigating individual dispersal behaviour despite its expected influence on it. Therefore, I intend to fill this gap and investigate its influence on individual dispersal decisions; thereby helping to better understand the maintenance of behavioural differences and meta-population dynamics. For this purpose I will use computer simulations. The final model will consist of meta-populations in which environmental conditions for populations will differ in predation risk and environmental complexity. The aims of the simulations will be to show that i) individuals with different combinations of exploration tendencies and learning abilities can coexist within a population and ii) that dispersing individuals will differ in their characteristics depending on environmental conditions and, as a consequence, founding populations will consist of specific types of individuals. In general, appreciating individual differences will help to understand meta-population dynamics in more detail and to better predict dispersal processes including the foundation of new populations.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: Finland
• Host: Dr. Lutz Fromhage