Ecological success of sexual and asexual reproductive strategies invading an environmentally unstable habitat

Abstract

Many aspects of sexual and asexual reproduction have been studied empirically and theoretically. The differences between sexual and asexual reproduction within a species often lead to a biased geographical distribution of individuals with different reproductive strategies. While sexuals are more abundant in the core habitat, asexuals are often found in marginal habitats along the edge of the species distribution. This pattern, called geographic parthenogenesis, has been observed in many species but the mechanisms reponsible for generating it are poorly known. We used a quantitative approach using a metapopulation model to explore the ecological processes that can lead to geographic parthenogenesis and the invasion of new habitats by different reproductive strategies. We analyzed the Allee effect on sexual populations and the population sensitivity to environmental stress during the invasion of a marginal, unstable habitat to demonstrate that a complex interaction between the Allee effect, sensitivity to environmental stress and the environmental conditions can determine the relative success of competing reproductive strategies during the initial invasion and longterm establishment in the marginal habitat. We discuss our results in the light of previous empirical and theoretical studies. Author SummaryIndividuals can reproduce with or without sex. Very often, closely related species are distributed in a such a way that the sexually reproducing species is most frequently found in the core habitat while the asexually reproducing species is found on the edge of the habitat range. This biased distribution of reproductive strategies across a habitat range is called geographic parthenogenesis and has been observed in several species. While many processes have been proposed to explain such a pattern, a quantitative approach of the ecological processes was absent. We investigated important differences between sexual and asexual reproduction and how these differences affect the success of sexuals and asexuals invading a marginal, unstable environment. We showed that the relative frequency of each reproductive strategy in the marginal habitat depends on how much sexuals rely on population density to reproduce and how much asexuals are affected by environmental stress relative to sexuals. Our study presents a quantitative ecological explanation for geographic parthenogenesis and provides the conditions under which different distribution patterns can emerge.