be relevant for the present study, which is probably due to the decision of using regular dispersal patterns.

\[sec:discussion:regul\]Impact of regularity on the results
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So far we focused on regular dispersal patterns. This approach made it possible to investigate the impact of the degree of symmetry of connectivity matrices on metapopulation viability independently from other possibly confounding effects, which is important in order to assess the role of dispersal symmetry for metapopulations. Our results on regular dispersal patterns show a remarkably low effect of symmetry ($\gamma$) on the viability of metapopulations at intermediate and high density of dispersal paths, $L/N$. At low $L/N$ symmetric dispersal even results in a slightly negative effects on the viability. How do these results relate to the more general case where the dispersal network is not regular?

![\[fig:nonreg\]Results on the viability of metapopulations exposed to general dispersal patterns randomly generated by modification of the algorithm described in \[sec:algor-gener-balanc\]. The analysis and graphical presentation of the simulation results is accordant to the procedure described in the caption of Figure \[fig:balanced\]. Please note that $L/N$ now specifies the mean number of connections per patch, while the actual number of dispersal links now can vary between patches.](NR-E50-nonreg_fixed_gamma.eps 