Bet-hedging strategies in expanding populations

Ecological species can spread their extinction risks in uncertain environments by adopting a bet hedging strategy, i.e. by diversifying individual phenotypes. We present a theory of bet-hedging for populations colonizing unknown environments that fluctuate either in space or time. We find that diversification is more favorable strategy in this scenario than for well-mixed populations, supporting the view that range expansions promote diversification. For slow rates of variation, spatial fluctuations open more opportunities for bet-hedging than temporal variations. Opportunities for bet-hedging reduce In the limit of frequent environmental variation, regardless of the nature of these fluctuations. These conclusions are robust against stochasticity induced by finite population sizes.

Ref. P.V. Martín, M.A. Muñoz, S. Pigolotti, submitted, arXiv:1810.01142