Species interactions affect dispersal: a meta-analysis

Bestion, Elvire;Legrand, Delphine;Baines, Celina B.;Bonte, Dries;Cote, Julien;et.al.
(2024) Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Physical sciences and engineering — Vol. 382, n° 2275, p. 1-18 (2024)

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Authors
  • Bestion, Elvireorcid-logoStation d’Ecologie Théorique et Expérimentale, CNRS, UAR 2029, Moulis 09200, France
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  • Legrand, DelphineStation d’Ecologie Théorique et Expérimentale, CNRS, UAR 2029, Moulis 09200, France
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  • Baines, Celina B.orcid-logoDepartment of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, 25 Willcocks Street, Toronto, Canada M5S 3B2
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  • Bonte, Driesorcid-logoTerrestrial Ecology Unit (TEREC), Department of Biology, Ghent University, K.L. Ledeganckstraat 35, Ghent 9000, Belgium
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  • Cote, Julienorcid-logoCentre de Recherche sur la Biodiversité et l'Environnement (CRBE), UMR 5300 CNRS-IRD-TINP-UT3, Université Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier, Bât. 4R1, 118 route de Narbonne, Toulouse 31062, France
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Abstract
Context-dependent dispersal allows organisms to seek and settle in habitats improving their fitness. Despite the importance of species interactions in determining fitness, a quantitative synthesis of how they affect dispersal is lacking. We present a meta-analysis asking (i) whether the interaction experienced and/or perceived by a focal species (detrimental interaction with predators, competitors, parasites or beneficial interaction with resources, hosts, mutualists) affects its dispersal; and (ii) how the species' ecological and biological background affects the direction and strength of this interaction-dependent dispersal. After a systematic search focusing on actively dispersing species, we extracted 397 effect sizes from 118 empirical studies encompassing 221 species pairs; arthropods were best represented, followed by vertebrates, protists and others. Detrimental species interactions increased the focal species’ dispersal (adjusted effect: 0.33 [0.06, 0.60]), while beneficial interactions decreased it (−0.55 [−0.92, −0.17]). The effect depended on the dispersal phase, with detrimental interactors having opposite impacts on emigration and transience. Interaction-dependent dispersal was negatively related to species’ interaction strength, and depended on the global community composition, with cues of presence having stronger effects than the presence of the interactor and the ecological complexity of the community. Our work demonstrates the importance of interspecific interactions on dispersal plasticity, with consequences for metacommunity dynamics.
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Citations

Bestion, E., Legrand, D., Baines, C. B., Bonte, D., Coulon, A., Dahirel, M., Delgado, M., Deshpande, J. N., Duncan, A. B., Fronhofer, E. A., Gounand, I., Jacob, S., Kaltz, O., Massol, F., Mathyssen, E., Parmentier, T., Saade, C., Schtickzelle, N., Zilio, G., & Cote, J. (2024). Species interactions affect dispersal: a meta-analysis. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Physical sciences and engineering, 382(2275), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2023.0127 (Original work published 2024)