Modelos Metapoblacionales y su importancia en ecología: más allá de Richard Levins.

Abstract

The study of metapopulations has played a fundamental role in our understanding Spatial Ecology, Metacommunities and Biogeography, among other areas. Richard Levins, defined the metapopulation as a system of local populations existing in an heterogeneous landscape, connected to each other by the movement of individuals. He also formulated a first model based on differential equations, to investigate the conditions under which a metapopulation can persist indefinitely. The Levins´s model highlights the importance of the movement of individuals between patches to ensure the persistence of the metapopulations, an idea that has permeated species conservation policies. Other models based on the Levins´s model have incorporated other ecological factors, among which the rain effect of propagules and the rescue effect stand out. In this essay, I review these models, study their dynamic properties and comment on some of their theoretical and applied implications.