Meeting Abstract

64.5  Wednesday, Jan. 6  Dispersal costs and kin selection have a strong effect on the evolution of migratory strategy. KOMISSAROVA, A.*; TRAVIS, J.M.J.; REDPATH, S.M.; Univ. of Aberdeen/Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, UK; Univ. of Aberdeen, UK; Univ. of Aberdeen/Macaulay Institute, UK a.komissarova@abdn.ac.uk

A better mechanistic understanding of migration and how it interacts with other life-history strategies is important both for predicting how migratory species may react to climate change and for developing robust conservation strategies. Partial migration, where only a proportion of the population migrates to separate over-wintering areas, is prevalent across a range of taxa. Here, we explore how environmental and ecological factors (specifically, dispersal) influence the evolution of partial migration. We describe a spatially explicit individual-based approach within which individuals carry migration propensity ‘genes’. By manipulating dispersal strategy we are able to establish how dispersal propensity influences the prevalence of migration within the population. Our results show a strong relationship between dispersal strategy and the evolved level of migration with high rates of dispersal within a population reducing the average proportion of migrants, this effect increasing with increasing dispersal costs. We also demonstrate that kin selection is an important factor and leads to a greater than expected proportion of migrants when population dispersal is low. This work has important implications for models of migration behaviour as it demonstrates that other life history strategies, such as dispersal, can have a large effect on the evolution and maintenance of migration.