Effect of dispersal-induced death in predator–prey metapopulation system with bistable local dynamics

Abstract

Metapopulation survivability largely depends on the efficient spatial movement of dispersing populations. This study investigates the predator–prey metapopulation model, where the patches are connected by weighted mean-field coupling, capturing species loss due to inefficient dispersal, along with bistability in the local system. Using a semi-analytical approach, it dissects the dynamics of individual patch system (IPS) and homogeneous patch system (HPS), a limiting case of the metapopulation with a homogeneous population distribution. Though HPS can capture a holistic metapopulation dynamic, including persistence and extinction, it fails to differentiate multi-clustered states arising from low dispersal rates and the initial value-dependent behaviours. Our simulation results uncover various emergent metapopulation dynamics, like homogeneous steady states (HSS), global synchrony, multi-cluster and chimera states. It shows that the metapopulation exhibits amplitude death (AD) and oscillation death (OD) based on the dispersal rate, efficiency, and initial active/inactive patch numbers. Moreover, the study formulates a distance-dependent dispersal efficiency on a geometrically generated network with asymmetric patch arrangement. Distance-dependent dispersal efficiency increases the occurrence of the OD state in the parametric plane. Understanding these dynamics sheds light on species survivability in metapopulation and underscores the importance of efficient spatial movement.