One of the major goals of ecology is to understand the mechanisms which promote species coexistence. Much progress has been made in recent years in understanding how spatial processes influence diversity. Here we present a pair of models designed to investigate the role of one spatial process, localized dispersal, in promoting regional species coexistence when trophic structure is present. The model community considered is a two-predator, two-prey assemblage with cyclic endstates. Through analysis and simulation, we show that increasing the range of species dispersal can inhibit regional species coexistence. This result is at odds with the conclusions of some previous studies which considered locality within a single trophic level, and suggests that the relationship between dispersal distance and regional coexistence may be more complicated than previously realized.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NCSU/oai:NCSU:etd-05152007-153807 |
| Date | 30 May 2007 |
| Creators | Hamilton, Matthew Williams |
| Contributors | Kevin Gross, James Gilliam, Alun Lloyd |
| Publisher | NCSU |
| Source Sets | North Carolina State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/theses/available/etd-05152007-153807/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dis sertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to NC State University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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