Extinction, Nonlinear Dynamics, and Sociality
This chapter assesses how social feedbacks, and particularly runaway dispersal resulting from social copying, influence population extinction. Several forms of the logistic model are built to assess the role of density-dependent and cooperation mechanisms in the generation of nonlinearities in the path to extinction. Interestingly, transience to an extinction stable state may be delayed and may result in quasi-extinction population queues. Some empirical examples of quasi-extinction stable states are shown, including human populations. It is also explained how social sunk-cost effects—when individuals are trapped in a patch due to its momentum of suitability, social copying, or emotional drivers—can influence these quasi-extinction dynamics. The chapter also reviews several statistical tools for anticipating critical transitions and other nonlinear behaviours in populations. These tools include the early warning signals, which quantify when a critical threshold is approaching.