objects/allee-effect.html

Allee Effect:

when the population is just too small

Exponential growth - possibly leading limitation

number of organisms * growth rate = number of new organisms

with more organisms, rate of change of population increases

may level off if resources are limiting or conditions are degraded

At low populations - may not reproduce fast enough to replace losses

losses could be as simple as death or predation

reproduction may be low under sparse densities - hard to find mates

Metastable population level

at low populations:

• any lower it will crash
• any higher it willl take off into exponential increase

at high populations

• as it approaches high population the growth rate slows down
• at the "carrying capacity" the net growth rate = 0
  • births - deaths = 0