Local Movement and Edge Effects on Competition and Coexistence in Ephemeral-Patch Models

Abstract

For insects exploiting spatially structured arrays of resource patches (host plants, fungi, carrion, etc.), the distribution of individuals among patches can have important consequences for the coexistence of competitors. In general, intraspecific aggregation of consumer individuals over the landscape of patches stabilizes competition. Oviposition behavior of individual females can generate aggregation of larvae across patches and, therefore, distribustrongly influences the outcome of competition between co‐ocurring species. We used simulation models to evaluate the consequences (for the coexistence of competitors) of different movement behaviors by females before and between oviposition events. Coexistence times increase when females are more likely to travel among neighboring patches than among distant ones. Coexistence times are also longer when females begin egg laying near the site of their emergence. Preoviposition dispersal is, therefore, destabilizing. We also considered responses by females to edges of resource arrays. Edge effects are generally stabilizing, delaying competitive exclusion by increasing larval aggregation, but different responses to edges have dramatically different effects on coexistence. The longest coexistence times occur when edges are “sticky”, such that females encountering an edge tend to remain there.