Effects of Dispersal and Heterogeneity on Metapopulations and Metacommunities
This is an exciting collaborative project, involving scientists from biology, ecology and mathematics. Main collaborators: Donald DeAngelis (University of Miami), Wei-Ming Ni (University of Minnesota), Alan Hastings (UC Davis), David Van Dyken (University of Miami), Kevin Collins (University of Miami). We are looking for students to join us, contact Bo Zhang.
Background
Understanding the mechanisms that percolate up from the individual level to structure
metapopulationsand metacommunities is fundamental in ecology and evolution.
Advances in mathematical ecology over the past three decades have made it clear that
the interaction between dispersal and habitat heterogeneity can have far-reaching
consequences for the dynamics and maintenance of diversity in metapopulations and
metacommunities.
Past Research
Has not only examined the previous theoretical predictions using a rigorous high-throughput, highly replicated microbial experimental system with budding yeast but also demonstrated that logistic spatial models often make qualitatively erroneous predictions about the effects of dispersal and spatial heterogeneity on metapopulations. Zhang et al. Ecology Letters 2017. See more details here.
Significance
We, therefore, introduced consumer-resource models to the theoretical studies, which make accurate quantitative predictions to match with the empirical data. Consequently, previous findings overturned some of the results of the logistic models and created a new potential to study challenging questions using consumer-resource models in spatially complex systems. DEVELOP A NEW MODEL BASED ON DATA!
Current Research
I am extending my future focus to multiple interacting species, combining the theoretical approach and rigorous experiments, to study how movement strategy alters species coexistence and metacommunity dynamics in heterogeneous environments.
Selected Publications
- Zhang, B. Liu, X., DeAngelis , D.L., Ni, W., Wang , G. Geoff. 2015. Effects of dispersal on total biomass in a patchy, heterogeneous system: Analysis and experiment, Mathematical Biosciences 264: 54-62. doi: 10.1016/j.mbs.2015.03.005 This work was published with undergraduate research assistants.
- Zhang, B, A. Kula, K.M.L. Mack, L. Zhai, A.L. Ryce*, W. Ni, D.L. DeAngelis, J. D. Van Dyken. 2017. Carrying capacity in a heterogeneous environment with habitat connection. Ecology Letters 20: 1118-1128. This work was published with undergraduate research assistants.
- Van Dyken, J. D., and B. Zhang. Carrying capacity of a spatially-structured population: disentangling the effects of dispersal, growth parameters, habitat heterogeneity and habitat clustering. Journal of Theoretical Biology.
- Zhang, B., D. L. DeAngelis, W. Ni, Y. Wang, L. Zhai, A. Kula, S. Xu, J. D. Van Dyken. Scaling antibiotic efficacy from cells to metapopulations. Major revision American Naturalist.