Evolutionary stability of ideal free dispersal strategies in patchy environments.

A central question in the study of the evolution of dispersal is what kind of dispersal strategies are evolutionarily stable. Hastings (Theor Pop Biol 24:244-251, 1983) showed that among unconditional dispersal strategies in a spatially heterogeneous but temporally constant environment, the dispersal strategy with no movement is convergent stable. McPeek and Holt's (Am Nat 140:1010-1027, 1992) work suggested that among conditional dispersal strategies in a spatially heterogeneous but temporally constant environment, an ideal free dispersal strategy, which results in the ideal free distribution for a single species at equilibrium, is evolutionarily stable. We use continuous-time and discrete-space models to determine when the dispersal strategy with no movement is evolutionarily stable and when an ideal free dispersal strategy is evolutionarily stable, both in a spatially heterogeneous but temporally constant environment.