How bad is to be slow-reacting ? On the effect of the delay in response to a changing environment on a population's survival

TL;DR

This paper examines how delays in individual responses to environmental changes affect population survival, revealing that slow reactions can either decrease or increase extinction risk depending on mutation variability.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical analysis of the impact of response delays on population survival in changing environments, highlighting the role of mutation-induced variability.

Findings

Slow reactions decrease extinction risk in low-variability populations.

Delayed response reduces survival chances in high-variability populations.

The impact varies with environmental change type (periodic or abrupt).

Abstract

We consider a simple-model population, whose individuals react with a certain delay to temporal variations of their habitat. We investigate the impact of such a delayed-answer on the survival chances of the population, both in a periodically changing environment, and in the case of an abrupt change of it. It is found that for population with low degree of mutation-induced variability, being "slow-reacting" decreases the extinction risk face to environmental changes. On the contrary, for populations with high mutation amplitude, the delayed reaction reduces the survival chances.