PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Simone Vincenzi
TI  - Contemporary risk of extinction in an extreme environment
AID  - 10.1101/2020.09.15.298919
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.09.15.298919
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/09/17/2020.09.15.298919.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/09/17/2020.09.15.298919.full
AB  - The increased frequency and intensity of extreme events are recognized among the most worrisome aspects of climate change. However, despite increased attention from scientists and conservationists, developing and testing general theories and hypotheses on the effects of extreme events on natural populations remains intrinsically challenging.Using numerical simulations, I tested some of the hypotheses on risk of extinction and population and genetic dynamics in an environment in which both climate (e.g., temperature, rainfall) and point (e.g., fires, floods) extremes occur. A quantitative trait is selected for by a climate variable, but point extremes cause trait-independent massive mortalities.I found additive effects between age at first reproduction and fecundity on risk of extinction. The extent of population bottlenecks (operationally, the number of years in which a population was at low numbers) was a good predictor of allelic richness for the quantitative trait selected for by the climate. Simple models including basic demographic and vital rates information of the species, along with climate/environmental measures, provided excellent predictions of contemporary risk of population extinction. Mean and minimum population size measured in a 10-year “observation window” were largely the most important predictors of risk of population extinction in the following 10-year “prediction window”.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.