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Related Concept Videos

What are Populations and Communities?00:30

What are Populations and Communities?

Populations are groups of individuals of the same species that inhabit a shared environment. Communities include multiple co-existing, interacting populations of different species. Metapopulations span multiple populations of the same species that occupy different areas. Metapopulations interact through immigration and emigration, providing genetic diversity that lends resilience to harsh environments. Population size and density can be estimated using quadrat and mark and recapture...
Population Growth00:57

Population Growth

Population size is dynamic, increasing with birth rates and immigration, and decreasing with death rates and emigration. In ideal conditions with unlimited resources, populations can increase exponentially, which plots as a J-shaped growth rate curve of population size against time. This type of curve is characteristic of newly-introduced invasive species, or populations that have suffered catastrophic declines and are rebounding.However, realistic environmental conditions limit the number of...
Conservation of Declining Populations02:07

Conservation of Declining Populations

Conservation of declining population focuses on ways of detecting, diagnosing, and halting a population decline. The approach uses methods to prevent populations from going extinct.
Threats to Biodiversity01:50

Threats to Biodiversity

There have been five major extinction events throughout geological history, resulting in the elimination of biodiversity, followed by a rebound of species that adapted to the new conditions. In the current geological epoch, the Holocene, there is a sixth extinction event in progress. This mass extinction has been attributed to human activities and is thus provisionally called the Anthropocene. In 2019 the human population reached 7.7 billion people and is projected to comprise 10 billion by...
Modeling with Differential Equations01:25

Modeling with Differential Equations

Population dynamics can be described mathematically by considering the population size P(t) as a function of time. The rate of change of the population is then represented by the derivative of P(t). A simple assumption is that the rate of growth is proportional to the size of the population itself. This leads to an exponential growth model, where the population increases rapidly without bound. While this is a useful first approximation, it does not reflect realistic long-term...
Conservation of Small Populations02:04

Conservation of Small Populations

Small population sizes put a species at extreme risk of extinction due to a lack of variation, and a consequent decrease in adaptability. This weakens the chances of survival under pressures such as climate change, competition from other species, or new diseases. Large populations are more likely to survive pressures such as these, as such populations are more likely to harbor individuals that have genetic variants that are adaptive under new stresses. Small populations are much less likely to...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 4, 2026

Experimental Protocol for Manipulating Plant-induced Soil Heterogeneity
08:16

Experimental Protocol for Manipulating Plant-induced Soil Heterogeneity

Published on: March 13, 2014

Quantifying plant population persistence in human-dominated landscapes.

Dawn M Lawson1, Cerina K Lamar, Mark W Schwartz

  • 1Joint Doctoral Program in Ecology, San Diego State University/University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA. dmlawson@ucdavis.edu

Conservation Biology : the Journal of the Society for Conservation Biology
|June 12, 2008
PubMed
Summary

Rare plant populations in urban areas and small populations perform well, challenging conservation strategies. Protecting urban-associated plants can boost biodiversity and public engagement in conservation efforts.

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Last Updated: Jul 4, 2026

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Published on: October 20, 2019

Area of Science:

  • Ecology
  • Conservation Biology
  • Botany

Background:

  • Current conservation strategies prioritize large, remote areas, potentially neglecting rare species in human-dominated landscapes.
  • The prevailing theory suggests small, isolated populations in urban settings are least likely to survive, yet empirical evidence is limited.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To test if rare plant population performance declines with increasing human dominance (urbanization).
  • To evaluate if small plant populations perform worse than larger ones.
  • To inform strategic conservation planning for biodiversity preservation.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized Natural Heritage data from California to assess rare plant population performance.
  • Analyzed performance across an urban-rural landscape gradient.
  • Compared performance of small versus large populations.

Main Results:

  • Rare plant population performance did not decrease in urban settings.
  • Small populations did not perform worse than larger ones.
  • Results align with observed low extinction rates in these landscapes over decades.

Conclusions:

  • Populations in human-impacted landscapes can significantly contribute to overall biodiversity conservation.
  • Conservation planning should consider allocating more resources to urban-associated rare plants.
  • Urban-associated plants may enhance conservation by increasing social interest and engagement.