Local populations of different sizes, mechanistic rescue effect and patch preference in the Levins metapopulation model.

In this paper three extensions of the Levins metapopulation model are discussed: (1) It is shown that the Levins model is still valid if patches contain local populations of different sizes with different colonization and extinction rates. (2) A more mechanistic formulation of the rescue effect is presented. (3) The addition of preference of dispersers for occupied or empty patches and its consequences for conservation strategies are studied.