Environmental Effects
Stochastic variation in the environment (year to year variation in rainfall, temperature) can produce temporally correlated birth and death rates (i.e. 'good' years when birth rates are high and death rates are low and 'bad' years when birth rates are low and death rates are high) that lead to fluctuations in the population size. Again, smaller populations are more likely to go extinct due to these environmentally generated population fluctuations than are large populations.
Read more about this topic: Small Population Size
Famous quotes containing the word effects:
“Consider what effects which might conceivably have practical bearings we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)