Data from: Occasional long-distance dispersal increases spatial synchrony of population cycles

1. Spatially-separated populations of the same species often exhibit
correlated fluctuations in abundance, a phenomenon known as spatial
synchrony. Dispersal can generate spatial synchrony. In nature, most
individuals disperse short distances with a minority dispersing long
distances. The effect of occasional long-distance dispersal on synchrony
is untested, and theoretical predictions are contradictory. Occasional
long-distance dispersal might either increase both overall synchrony and
the spatial scale of synchrony, or reduce them. 2. We conducted a protist
microcosm experiment to test whether occasional long-distance dispersal
increases or decreases overall synchrony and the spatial scale of
synchrony. 3. We assembled replicate 15-patch ring metapopulations of the
protist predator Euplotes patella and its protist prey Tetrahymena
pyriformis. All metapopulations experienced the same dispersal rate, but
differed in dispersal distance. Some metapopulations experienced strictly
short-distance (nearest neighbor) dispersal, others experienced a mixture
of short- and long-distance dispersal. 4. Occasional long distance
dispersal increased overall spatial synchrony and the spatial scale of
synchrony for both prey and predators, though the effects were not
statistically significant for predators. As predicted by theory, dispersal
generated spatial synchrony by entraining the phases of the predator-prey
cycles in different patches, a phenomenon known as phase locking. 5. Our
results are consistent with theoretical models predicting that occasional
long-distance dispersal increases spatial synchrony. However, our results
also illustrate that the spatial scale of synchrony need not match the
spatial scale of the processes generating synchrony. Even strictly
short-distance dispersal maintained high spatial synchrony for many
generations at spatial scales much longer than the dispersal distance,
thanks to phase locking.