The biotic and abiotic contexts of ecological selection mediate the dominance of distinct dispersal strategies in competitive metacommunities

While the influence of dispersal on metacommunities is the subject of intense research, we still do not understand how species-species and species-environment relationships determine the success of different dispersal strategies in metacommunities. To address this, we employed simulation models considering species with distinct context-dependent dispersal strategies involved in the three stages of dispersal (departure, transience, and settlement). These species were allowed to reach coexistence at the metacommunity scale under various competitive hierarchies and different levels of spatial and temporal environmental variability. By assessing the context-dependent dispersal strategies of species that persisted and dominated metacommunities, we could understand how metacommunity dynamics impose ecological selection on dispersal.