Evolutionary rescue from a wave of biological invasion

AbstractEvolution can potentially rescue populations from being driven extinct by biological invasions, but predictions for this occurrence are generally lacking. Here I derive theoretical predictions for evolutionary rescue of a resident population experiencing invasion from an introduced competitor that spreads over its introduced range as a traveling spatial wave that displaces residents. I compare the likelihood of evolutionary rescue from invasion for two modes of competition: exploitation and interference competition. I find that, all else equal, evolutionary rescue is less effective at preventing extinction caused by interference-driven invasions than by exploitation-driven invasions. Rescue from interference-driven invasions is, surprisingly, independent of invader dispersal rate or the speed of invasion and is more weakly dependent on range size than in the exploitation-driven case. In contrast, rescue from exploitation-driven invasions strongly depends on range size and is less likely during fas...