Quantitative Biology Seminars | Minimizing Extinction Risk By Migration | Speaker: Len Sander (U-M Physics)

Speaker: Len Sander (U-M Physics)

Many populations in nature are fragmented: they consist of local populations occupying separate patches. A local population is prone to extinction due to the shot noise of birth and death processes. A migrating population from another patch can dramatically delay extinction. What is the optimal migration rate that minimizes the extinction risk of the whole population? Here we answer this question for a connected network of model habitat patches with different carrying capacities.