Theoretical and empirical studies often show that within populations, individuals vary in their propensity to disperse. We aspired to understand how this behavioural variation is impacted by the distribution and pattern of food patches across a landscape. In a series of experiments we examined how inter‐patch distance and the distribution of food patches influenced dispersal in wild‐type strains of Drosophila melanogaster with natural allelic variants of the foraging (for) gene known to influence dispersal in this species. The ‘rover' strain was homozygous for the for^R allele (more dispersive) whereas the ‘sitter' strain was homozygous for for^s (less dispersive). We also assessed an outbred population of flies with an unknown dispersal propensity. Dispersal was assayed in a multi‐patch lab arena (25 cells, 5 × 5 array). In the inter‐patch distance trials, landscapes of two different sizes (small versus large) were used, both with food in all 25 cells. Dispersal was reduced in the large landscape relative to the small landscape for all three fly strains. Sitter dispersal was lowest relative to both rovers and the outbred flies, whose dispersal tendencies were similar. In the patch distribution trials, flies were assayed in landscapes with varying distribution and number of cells containing food. Dispersal generally increased as the number of patches with food increased, however, rovers and sitters adopted similar dispersal strategies when food was fixed and limited. Conversely, their strategies differed when the total amount of food increased with the number of patches. We find that both the inter‐patch distance and distribution can influence dispersal. However, the effect of inter‐patch distance and distribution on dispersals depends on genotype × environment interaction. Our findings highlight the importance of considering G × E when assessing how dispersal strategies and landscape dynamics influence the distribution of animal communities.

中文翻译：

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在斑驳的景观中追踪散布表明基因型和栖息地结构之间存在动态相互作用

理论和经验研究经常表明，在人群中，个体的传播倾向各不相同。我们希望了解这种行为变化如何受到整个景观中食物斑块的分布和样式的影响。在一系列实验中，我们研究了斑节间的距离和食物斑块的分布如何影响果蝇野生型菌株中觅食（for）基因的天然等位基因变体（已知）的自然等位基因变体会影响该物种的传播。的“漫游者”菌株是纯合的用于^ř等位基因（更分散），而“保姆”菌株是纯合的用于^小号（较少分散）。我们还评估了散布倾向未知的近交蝇。分散性在多批次实验室中测定（25个细胞，5×5阵列）。在补丁间距离试验中，使用了两种不同大小（小到大）的景观，全部25个单元中都有食物。相对于所有三个果蝇品系的小景观，大景观中的散布减少。相对于流浪者和近交蝇而言，保育者的散布率最低，其散布趋势相似。在斑块分布试验中，在分布有食物的细胞分布和数量不同的环境中对果蝇进行了分析。随着食物中小块的数量增加，分散通常会增加，但是，当食物固定并受到限制时，流动站和保姆采取了类似的分散策略。反过来，当食物总量随着贴片数量的增加而增加时，他们的策略也有所不同。我们发现补丁间距离和分布都可以影响散布。然而，斑块间距离和分布对散布的影响取决于基因型×环境相互作用。我们的发现突出了在评估分散策略和景观动态如何影响动物群落分布时考虑G×E的重要性。