Unpacking the Allee effect: determining individual-level mechanisms that drive global population dynamics

Abstract

We present a solid theoretical foundation for interpreting the origin of Allee effects by providing the missing link in understanding how local individual-based mechanisms translate to global population dynamics. Allee effects were originally proposed to describe population dynamics that cannot be explained by exponential and logistic growth models. However, standard methods often calibrate Allee effect models to match observed global population dynamics without providing any mechanistic insight. By introducing a stochastic individual-based model, with proliferation, death and motility rates that depend on local density, we present a modelling framework that translates particular global Alle..