This article studies the effect of travel costs on population distribution in a patchy environment. The Ideal Free Distribution with travel costs is defined in the article as the distribution under which it is not profitable for individuals to move, i.e., the movement between patches ceases. It is shown that depending on the travel costs between patches, the Ideal Free Distribution may be unique, there may be infinitely many possible IFDs, or no Ideal Free Distribution exists. In the latter case, animal distribution can converge to an equilibrium of distributional dynamics at which individuals do disperse, but the net movement between patches ceases. Such distributional equilibrium corresponds to balanced dispersal.

Department of Mathematics Faculty of Science University of South Bohemia Branišovská 1760 370 05 České Budějovice Czech Republic; Biology Centre Czech Academy of Sciences Branišovská 31 370 05 České Budějovice Czech Republic

Department of Mathematics Wilfrid Laurier University Waterloo Ontario Canada

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