Dispersal: dispersing across scales and disciplines

Abstract

Dispersal ultimately causes gene flow through space and/or time and, thus, understanding why, how, and where organisms disperse is central to many questions in theoretical and applied ecology and evolution. Understanding the dispersal of organisms is further critical to many aspects of habitat management and conservation, and for understanding how populations and species will respond to global (e.g., climate) change. How can individuals use environmental information to assess (and mitigate) the costs and maximise the benefits associated with dispersal? What do we know about the genetic structure of dispersal traits? How are dispersal patterns affected by rapidly changing ecological conditions? This is only a small subset of the question pool this book addresses