Abstract
Dispersal and migration are superficially similar large-scale movements, but which appear to differ in terms of inter-individual behavioural synchronization. Seasonal migration is a striking example of coordinated behaviour, enabling animal populations to track spatio-temporal variation in ecological conditions. By contrast, for dispersal, while social context may influence an individual's emigration and settlement decisions, transience is believed to be mostly a solitary behaviour. Here, we review differences in drivers that may explain why migration appears to be more synchronized than dispersal. We derive the prediction that the contrast in the importance of behavioural synchronization between dispersal and migration is linked to differences in the selection pressures that drive their respective evolution. Although documented examples of collective dispersal are rare, this behaviour may be more common than currently believed, with important consequences for eco-evolutionary dynamics. Crucially, to date, there is little available theory for predicting when we should expect collective dispersal to evolve, and we also lack empirical data to test predictions across species. By reviewing the state of the art in research on migration and collective movements, we identify how we can harness these advances, both in terms of theory and data collection, to broaden our understanding of synchronized dispersal and its importance in the context of global change.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1275-1296 |
Number of pages | 22 |
Journal | Biological Reviews |
Volume | 92 |
Issue number | 3 |
Early online date | 6 May 2016 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Aug 2017 |
Bibliographical note
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThis work was initiated at a workshop within the ‘Movement And Dispersal (MAD)’ conference held in Aberdeen, 2013. We thank Tal Avgar, Scott Burgess and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on previous versions of this manuscript. This work was based in the Laboratoire Evolution et Diversité Biologique (CNRS, UPS, UMR 5174), and in the Station d'Ecologie Expérimentale du CNRS à Moulis (CNRS USR 2936) that are part of the Laboratoire d'Excellence (LABEX) ‘TULIP’ (ANR-10-LABX-41 ; ANR-11-IDEX-0002-02) and in the CEFS laboratory, INRA (Toulouse). J.C. was supported by an ANR-12-JSV7-0004-01 and by the ERA-Net BiodivERsA, with the national funder ONEMA, part of the 2012-2013 BiodivERsA call for research proposals. A.J.M.H. and M.B. were supported by the ‘INDHET'ANR grant ANR-12 -BSV7-0023-02. H.C.W. thanks the Finnish Doctoral Program in Computational Sciences (FICS) and the Academy of Finland for financial support.
Keywords
- seasonal migration
- dispersal
- social grouping
- coalition
- budding
- transience
- sociability
- parallel dispersal
- schooling
- coordinated movement