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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.

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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.






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