Ecology
Résumé
Metapopulation theory aims to predict if and how a species will either cope with the threats that follow habitat destruction and fragmentation, or will become extinct. Predictions such as these are difficult to make as dispersal between patches of fragmented habitat is under strong evolutionary pressure from factors such as landscape structure and configuration. In a recent study in Nature Communications3, the late Ilkka Hanski and his colleagues of the Metapopulation Research Centre (University of Helsinki, Finland) provide empirical evidence that allelic variation in a gene associated with dispersal correlates with population colonization and extinction turnover within metapopulations.