Extinction of poorest competitors and temporal heterogeneity of habitat destruction

Abstract

Previous metapopulation models mostly focus on instantaneous destruction, but ignore the temporal heterogeneity of habitat destruction, and mostly focus on best competitors, but ignore poorest competitors. So we have studied how extinctions of poorest competitors respond to the temporal heterogeneity of habitat destruction at different rates. The results show that: (1) Extinction of poorest competitors can be classified into two categories: one is immediate extinction, and the other is delayed extinction from the poorest to the best; (2) For poorest competitors, the higher the speed of habitat destruction, the more species go extinct and the shorter the extinction time. So, the slower habitat destruction, the more propitious it is to the persistence of poorest competitors; (3) Better dispersal abilities can hardly ensure greater resistance to habitat destruction for poorest competitors.