Nature 269, 578 - 581 (13 October 1977); doi:10.1038/269578a0

Dispersal in stable habitats

W. D. Hamilton^* & Robert M. May^†

^*Imperial College Field Station, Silwood Park, Ascot, Berkshire, UK
^†Department of Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08540

Simple mathematical models show that adaptations for achieving dispersal retain great importance even in uniform and predictable environments. A parent organism is expected to try to enter a high fraction of its propagules into competition for sites away from its own immediate locality even when mortality to such dispersing propagules is extremely high. The models incidentally provide a case where the evolutionarily stable dispersal strategy for individuals is suboptimal for the population as a whole.

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