Understanding the effects of dispersal on metapopulation dynamics is crucial for assessing the impacts of habitat fragmentation and informing effective conservation strategies. However, previous theories have primarily focused on the effects of extremely low or high dispersal rates due to their mathematical tractability. In this study, we use a graphical approach to intuitively illustrate how dispersal–abundance relationships vary across scenarios of spatial heterogeneity. In logistic growth models, we show that as the intrinsic growth rate in the more productive patch increases, the dispersal–abundance relationship transitions sequentially from a monotonic decrease, to a hump‐shaped curve, and eventually to a monotonic increase. In consumer–resource systems with type I or II functional responses, consumer dispersal can either increase or decrease the total consumer abundance compared to isolated cases. As consumer dispersal rate increases, resource abundance first declines but then increases. These context‐dependent effects of dispersal can be understood from a general framework based on local recovery rates of subpopulations near equilibrium. These findings underscore the central role of spatial heterogeneities in mediating the effects of dispersal on metapopulation abundance, offering insights for conservation management strategies.
Wu et al. (2026) studied this question.