When coupled systems become synchronized, the courses of events in each system are strongly correlated. In a great number of ecological systems, this applies to changes in the abundances of the same species in different spatial patches. This form of demographic synchrony has traditionally been explained by two independent synchronizing mechanisms: coupling of patches through migration between patches, and dependence of population dynamics in different patches on fluctuating common environmental factors. Given the plethora of populations with wild local dynamics but synchronized global behavior encountered in nature, also Darwinian evolution may contribute to synchrony. The purpose of my project is to investigate this conjecture through the analysis of different dynamic ecological models of coupled populations subject to evolution.
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
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