Category: Ecology

Summary: Testing whether corridor strength in a metapopulation with Allee effects shows hysteresis and a shifted optimum under high fatigue or stress conditions.

Populations spread across patches can benefit from corridors, but strong Allee effects and environmental stress can make recovery path-dependent. This experiment asks whether the best corridor setting differs between low-fatigue and high-fatigue conditions, creating hysteresis rather than a single universal optimum.

The code builds climate-stress fields, simulates repeated episodes, and records support for a re-entrant mid-range corridor strength along with the best parameter values in contrasting regimes. The key question is whether raising stress shifts the favorable corridor setting upward and changes the shape of the rescue window.

That makes the project relevant to habitat restoration and fragmentation policy. If hysteresis is present, managers may need different corridor strategies for collapse prevention and recovery.

Method: Metapopulation simulations with Allee effects and climate-stress forcing, comparing corridor-strength sweeps across low- and high-fatigue conditions.

What is measured: Support for re-entrant and mid-optimum behavior, best corridor parameter under low and high fatigue, shift magnitude, and grid-level trial summaries.