The scaling of population persistence with carrying capacity does not asymptote in populations of a fish experiencing extreme climate variability.

ABSTRACT: Despite growing concerns regarding increasing frequency of extreme climate events and declining population sizes, the influence of environmental stochasticity on the relationship between population carrying capacity and time-to-extinction has received little empirical attention. While time-to-extinction increases exponentially with carrying capacity in constant environments, theoretical models suggest increasing environmental stochasticity causes asymptotic scaling, thus making minimum viable carrying capacity vastly uncertain in variable environments. Using empirical estimates of environmental stochasticity in fish metapopulations, we showed that increasing environmental stochasticity resulting from extreme droughts was insufficient to create asymptotic scaling of time-to-extinction with

SUBMITTER: White RSA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5474084 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature