Response of population size to changing vital rates in random environments

Abstract

Population size and population growth rate respond to changes in vital rates like survival and fertility. In deterministic environments change in population growth rate alone determines change in population size. In random environments, population size at any time t is a random variable so that change in population size obeys a probability distribution. We analytically show that, in a density-independent population, the proportional change in population size with respect to a small proportional change in a vital rate has an asymptotic normal distribution. Its mean grows linearly at a rate equal to the elasticity of the long-term stochastic growth rate λS while the standard deviation scales as \(\sqrt t\). Consequently, a vital rate with a larger elasticity of λS may produce a larger mean change in population size compared to one with a smaller elasticity of λS. But a given percentage change in population size may be more likely when the vital rate with smaller elasticity is perturbed. Hence, the response of population size to perturbation of a vital rate depends not only on the elasticity of the population growth rate but also on the variance in change in population size. Our results provide a formula to calculate the probability that population size changes by a given percentage that works well even for short time periods.