On the mechanistic underpinning of discrete-time population models with Allee effect

: Eskola HTM, Parvinen K

Publisher: ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE

: 2007

: Theoretical Population Biology

: THEORETICAL POPULATION BIOLOGY

: THEOR POPUL BIOL

: 72

: 1

: 41

: 51

: 11

: 0040-5809

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tpb.2007.03.004

The Allee effect means reduction in individual fitness at low population densities. There are many discrete-time population models with an Allee effect in the literature, but most of them are phenomenological. Recently, Geritz and Kisdi [2004. On the mechanistic underpinning of discrete-time population models with complex dynamics. J. Theor. Biol. 228, 261-269] presented a mechanistic underpinning of various discrete-time population models without an Allee effect. Their work was based on a continuous-time resource-consumer model for the dynamics within a year, from which they derived a discrete-time model for the between-year dynamics. In this article, we obtain the Allee effect by adding different mate finding mechanisms to the within-year dynamics. Further, by adding cannibalism we obtain a higher variety of models. We thus present a generator of relatively realistic, discrete-time Allee effect models that also covers some currently used phenomenological models driven more by mathematical convenience. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.