Question

Explain how an extinction vortex can lead to the extinction of a small population. describe how a greater prairie chicken population was rescued from an extinction vortex.

Answer 1

Extinction vortex occurs when demographic, environmental, and genetic stochasticity interact with each other and with deterministic factors, such as habitat quality, to reinforce the demise of a small population. The small population becomes completely unable to recover especially due to lack of genetic variability.

The numbers of-of the prairie chicken population could not be reversed through the management of habitat alone but  by a transfusion of genetic variation in the population. This was done to help the species achieve minimal viable population size at which a species is able to sustain its numbers.