Population synchrony in small-world networks

Network topography ranges from regular graphs (linkage between nearest neighbours only) via small-world graphs (some random connections between nodes) to completely random graphs. Small-world linkage is seen as a revolutionary architecture for a wide range of social, physical and biological networks, and has been shown to increase synchrony between oscillating subunits. We study small-world topographies in a novel context: dispersal linkage between spatially structured populations across a range of population models. Regular dispersal between population patches interacting with density-dependent renewal provides one ecological explanation for the large-scale synchrony seen in the temporal fluctuations of many species, for example, lynx populations in North America, voles in Fennoscandia and grouse in the UK. Introducing a small-world dispersal kernel leads to a clear reduction in synchrony with both increasing dispersal rate and small-world dispersal probability across a variety of biological scenarios. Synchrony is also reduced when populations are affected by globally correlated noise. We discuss ecological implications of small-world dispersal in the frame of spatial synchrony in population fluctuations.