Gorde:
| Egile Nagusiak: | , |
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| Formatua: | Recurso digital |
| Hizkuntza: | |
| Argitaratua: |
Zenodo
2025
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| Sarrera elektronikoa: | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17740914 |
| Etiketak: |
Etiketa erantsi
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Aurkibidea:
- The traditional r/K selection theory, while foundational to evolutionary ecology, often falls short in explaining species persistence and extinction patterns in increasingly dynamic and perturbed landscapes. This paper proposes a novel framework that integrates the concept of Allee catastrophes into the r/K selection paradigm, offering a more nuanced understanding of life history strategies under environmental variability. Allee effects, characterized by positive density dependence at low population sizes, can lead to rapid and irreversible population declines (Allee catastrophes) once a critical threshold is breached. We argue that the differential susceptibility of r-selected and K-selected species to Allee effects, particularly in the context of fluctuating resources, habitat fragmentation, and climatic shifts, significantly alters their perceived fitness landscapes and persistence probabilities. Our framework conceptualizes how environmental dynamics can push populations below Allee thresholds, leading to unexpected extinctions even for seemingly robust K-strategists or preventing the establishment of r-strategists. Through a theoretical exploration, we illustrate how this integration provides a robust tool for predicting species vulnerability, understanding the evolution of life history traits, and informing conservation strategies in an era of rapid global change. This interdisciplinary approach bridges classic ecological theory with modern understandings of population dynamics, offering a more comprehensive lens to view species interactions with their ever-changing environments.