Extinction risk of a metapopulation under bistable local dynamics
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 28, 2025

Predicting the Effectiveness of Population Replacement Strategy Using Mathematical Modeling
Published on: July 4, 2007
1Racah Institute of Physics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel.
Abstract:
We study the extinction risk of a fragmented population residing on a network of patches coupled by migration, where the local patch dynamics includes deterministic bistability. Mixing between patches is shown to dramatically influence the population's viability. We demonstrate that slow migration always increases the population's global extinction risk compared to the isolated case, while at fast migration synchrony between patches minimizes the population's extinction risk. Moreover, we discover a critical migration rate that maximizes the extinction risk of the population, and identify an early-warning signal when approaching this state. Our theoretical results are confirmed via the highly efficient weighted ensemble method. Notably, our theoretical formalism can also be applied to studying switching in gene regulatory networks with multiple transcriptional states.
Related Concept Videos
Conservation of Declining Populations
Population Growth
Conservation of Small Populations
Genetic Drift
Mutation, Gene Flow, and Genetic Drift
Threats to Biodiversity

