Fitness‐dependent dispersal in metapopulations and its consequences for persistence and synchrony

We present a novel metapopulation model where dispersal is fitness dependent: the strength of migration from a site is dependent on the expected reproductive fitness of individuals there. Furthermore, individuals continue to migrate until they reach a suitable habitat where their expected fitness is above a threshold value. 2. Fitness‐dependent dispersal has a very strong stabilizing effect on population dynamics, even when the intrinsic dynamics of populations in the absence of dispersal exhibit complex high‐amplitude oscillations. This stabilizing effect is much stronger than that of the density‐independent dispersal normally considered in metapopulation models. 3. Even when fitness‐dependent dispersal does not stabilize the dynamics in a formal sense, it generally leads to simplification, with complex or even chaotic fluctuations being reduced to simple cycles. 4. This form of dispersal also has a strong tendency to synchronize local population dynamics across the spatial extent of the metapopulation. 5. These conclusions are robust to the addition of strong stochasticity in the migration threshold.