Category: Ecology

Summary: Testing whether intermediate phase lag between disturbance waves becomes beneficial only when moderate corridor coupling and persistent seed banks act together.

Spatially distributed populations can experience repeated disturbance waves that strike habitat patches at different times. This experiment asks whether an intermediate phase lag between those waves can actually improve occupancy, but only when two other ingredients are present as well: moderate corridor coupling and a persistent seed bank.

The simulation compares synchronous, intermediate-lag, and anti-phase disturbance patterns while varying dispersal and dormancy support. The target signal is a positive occupancy advantage for mid-phase pulses in the regime where both movement and seed-bank storage are strong enough to create rescue without fully homogenizing the system.

The question is interesting because phase structure, dispersal, and dormancy are often considered separately. Here the experiment looks for a three-way interaction in which none of the ingredients is sufficient on its own.

Method: Metapopulation simulations comparing occupancy outcomes across disturbance phase lags, corridor coupling levels, and seed-bank persistence regimes.

What is measured: Occupancy gain for intermediate phase lag, dependence on corridor coupling and seed-bank persistence, and regime-level support metrics.