Internal Seminar: Paula Villa Martin, Bet-hedging strategies in expanding populations

Internal Seminar

Speaker: Paula Villa Martin, Postdoctoral Researcher, Biological Complexity Unit (Simone Pigolotti Unit)

Title: Bet-hedging strategies in expanding populations

Abstract:

In ecology, species can mitigate their extinction risks in uncertain environments by diversifying individual phenotypes. This observation is quantified by the theory of bet-hedging, which provides a reason for the degree of phenotypic diversity observed even in clonal populations. The theory of bet-hedging in well-mixed populations is rather well developed. However, many species underwent range expansions during their evolutionary history, and the importance of phenotypic diversity in such scenarios still needs to be understood. We develop a theory of bet-hedging for populations colonizing new, unknown environments that fluctuate either in space or time. For slow rates of variation, temporal and spatial fluctuations lead to different outcomes. In spatially-fluctuating environments, bet-hedging is favoured compared to well-mixed populations, whereas the opposite occurs in temporally fluctuating environments. With rapid temporal environmental variation, no opportunity for bet-hedging exists, regardless of the nature of the environmental fluctuations. These conclusions are robust against stochasticity induced by finite population sizes. Our findings shed light on the importance of phenotypic heterogeneity in range expansions, paving the way to novel approaches to understand how biodiversity emerges and is maintained.

Please join us for free pizza, soft drinks, and scientific discussion following the seminar from 5:00 - 5:30pm.