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Related Concept Videos

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...
Mutation, Gene Flow, and Genetic Drift01:09

Mutation, Gene Flow, and Genetic Drift

In a population that is not at Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, the frequency of alleles changes over time. Therefore, any deviations from the five conditions of Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium can alter the genetic variation of a given population. Conditions that change the genetic variability of a population include mutations, natural selection, non-random mating, gene flow, and genetic drift (small population size).Mechanisms of Genetic VariationThe original sources of genetic variation are mutations,...
Genetic Drift03:33

Genetic Drift

Natural selection—probably the most well-known evolutionary mechanism—increases the prevalence of traits that enhance survival and reproduction. However, evolution does not merely propagate favorable traits, nor does it always benefit populations.Life is not fair. A deer grazing contentedly in a field can have her meal cut tragically short by a bolt of lightning. If the doomed doe is one of only three in the population, 1/3 of the population’s gene pool is lost. Random events like this can...
What is Population Genetics?01:25

What is Population Genetics?

A population is composed of members of the same species that simultaneously live and interact in the same area. When individuals in a population breed, they pass down their genes to their offspring. Many of these genes are polymorphic, meaning that they occur in multiple variants. Such variations of a gene are referred to as alleles. The collective set of all the alleles within a population is known as the gene pool.While some alleles of a given gene might be observed commonly, other variants...
Hardy-Weinberg Principle01:49

Hardy-Weinberg Principle

Diploid organisms have two alleles of each gene, one from each parent, in their somatic cells. Therefore, each individual contributes two alleles to the gene pool of the population. The gene pool of a population is the sum of every allele of all genes within that population and has some degree of variation. Genetic variation is typically expressed as a relative frequency, which is the percentage of the total population that has a given allele, genotype or phenotype.In the early 20th century,...
Gene Flow02:39

Gene Flow

Gene flow is the transfer of genes among populations, resulting from either the dispersal of gametes or from the migration of individuals.

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 13, 2026

Following the Dynamics of Structural Variants in Experimentally Evolved Populations
04:52

Following the Dynamics of Structural Variants in Experimentally Evolved Populations

Published on: February 3, 2023

Environmental variance, population growth and evolution.

Shripad Tuljapurkar1

  • 1Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.

The Journal of Animal Ecology
|April 23, 2010
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Environmental fluctuations significantly impact population dynamics and evolution. Analyzing red kangaroo vital rates shows how rainfall variability influences growth, highlighting the importance of environmental drivers in ecological and evolutionary models.

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Area of Science:

  • Ecology and evolutionary biology
  • Population dynamics modeling
  • Environmental science

Background:

  • Environmental fluctuations across generations are key drivers of population dynamics and microevolution.
  • Understanding how vital rates respond to environmental variability is crucial for ecological and evolutionary studies.

Discussion:

  • Jonzén et al. investigated the relationship between red kangaroo vital rates and annual rainfall.
  • The study estimated elasticities of stochastic growth rate to vital rates and rainfall parameters.
  • This research emphasizes incorporating explicit environmental drivers into population modeling.

Key Insights:

  • Annual rainfall directly influences the vital rates of red kangaroos.
  • Elasticity analysis reveals the sensitivity of population growth to environmental means and variances.
  • Explicit environmental drivers enhance the accuracy of ecological and evolutionary models.

Outlook:

  • Future research should integrate environmental variability into population models across ecological and evolutionary scales.
  • Mean and variance elasticities offer a robust framework for assessing population responses to environmental change.
  • This approach can be applied to various species facing fluctuating environments to predict population dynamics and evolutionary trajectories.