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Helgol Mar Res (2003) 56:222228 DOI 10.1007/s10152-002-0121-3
O R I G I N A L A RT I C L E
Volker Grimm Karsten Reise Matthias Strasser
Marine metapopulations: a useful concept?
Received: 1 October 2002 / Accepted: 18 October 2002 / Published online: 5 December 2002 Springer-Verlag and AWI 2002
Abstract We discuss the potential and limitations of the metapopulation concept in marine ecology. The usefulness of the concept in terrestrial ecology is neither based on its simplicity or generality nor on overwhelming empirical evidence. The usefulness is in the questions which are asked when the metapopulation concept is applied. These questions address spatial phenomena and processes on different spatial scales. They help in acknowledging that every population, be it terrestrial or marine, has a spatial organization. Understanding this spatial organization is also important for tackling specific applied problems, i.e. to avoid overexploitation of living marine resources or for configuring marine reserves. The openness of coastal populations, whose larvae enter larval pools or which are holoplanktonic, is no reason for not asking the questions implied by the metapopulation concept. For marine ecology, the real problem is to delineate populations, which then may possibly correspond to the local populations of metapopulations. Thus, the answer to the question in the title of this paper, whether marine metapopulation is a useful concept, is yes, if the concept is considered a working hypotheses, if the concept is explicitly defined, and if the questions linked to the concept are clearly stated. Even if it eventually transpires that only very few marine metapopulations actually exist, marine ecology would still have gained some important new insights.
Keywords Metapopulation Population ecology Dispersal Coastal
Introduction
The concept of a metapopulation as a population of populations that go extinct and recolonize (Levins 1970) has become a major paradigm in conservation biology and terrestrial animal population ecology (Harrison 1991; Hanski 1999). The number of publications using the metapopulation concept has increased exponentially since the mid 1980s (Hanski 1999, p. 180), which indicates that the concept must be useful for a wide range of systems and problems. The concept applies to situations where the habitat in which individuals reproduce and preferably live is not homogeneous but consists of discrete islands or patches. Due to isolation from...