title: The threshold of survival for systems in a fluctuating environment.
abstract: Thresholds for survival and extinction are important for assessing the risk of mortality in systems exposed to exogenous stress. For generic, rudimentary population models and the classical resource-consumer models of Leslie and Gallopin, we demonstrate the existence of a survival threshold for situations where demographic parameters are fluctuating, generally, in a nonperiodic manner. The fluctuations are assumed to be generated by exogenous, anthropogenic stresses such as toxic chemical exposures. In general, the survival threshold is determined by a relationship between mean stress measure in organisms to the ratio of the population intrinsic growth rate and stress response rate.
authors.forename: Z E
authors.initials: ZE
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: B J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Song
authors.forename: T G
authors.initials: TG
authors.lastname: Hallam
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004777:Environment; D004787:Environmental Pollution; D008433:Mathematics; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009026:Mortality; D011157:Population Dynamics; D012307:Risk Factors