Abstract:Understanding Allee effects is important for ecological conservation and management because it is strongly related to population extinction. The Allee effect is a destabilizing factor in species persistence, and endangered species are more susceptible to the effect as it will increase the risk of extinction associated with living in fragmented habitats. Many mechanisms may account for the Allee effect, such as organism-environment feedback, mate-finding limitations, cooperative defense, social dysfunction, inbreeding depression, and predator avoidance or defense. Because of various ecological mechanisms leading to the Allee effect, a large amount of experimental evidence in recent years has indicated that species have been subjected to multiple Allee effects. Therefore, it is necessary to study the influence of multiple Allee effects on population dynamics and persistence; however, few theoretical studies have been performed on multiple Allee effects. In this study, we began by assuming that metapopulations experience Allee effects caused by organism-environment feedback and also induced the Allee effect through other ecological mechanisms. We constructed a differential dynamical system and we used phase-plane analysis and numerical solutions to illustrate equilibriums and their system stability. Furthermore, we discussed and simulated the influences of the Allee effect on the spatial distribution of a metapopulation by using a cellular automata model based on a lattice model. The results obtained by theoretical analysis and computer simulations suggested that a strong Allee effect could markedly increase the extinction risk for a metapopulation with habitat restoration; (2) Habitat restoration is favorable for population persistence; and (3) local dispersal influences the spatial structure, dynamics, and stability of a population. Our simulations, which explicitly consider spatial structure, also demonstrated that local interaction among habitat patches can greatly mitigate the Allee effect and is favorable for the persistence of a metapopulation. This result suggests that limited local dispersal may be a stabilizing factor.