Prior studies have demonstrated that temporal variation in local growth rates with a positive autocorrelation (i.e., short-term predictability, with "runs" of good years and bad years) can increase the average abundance of sink populations a phenomenon dubbed the "inflationary effect." Here, the authors show that the inflationary effect can permit an array of sink populations coupled by migration to persist, even with no immigration from a persistent external source.
Total metapopulation abundance can be large given a high autocorrelation and large movement rates. Because there are many reasons to expect positive autocorrelation in growth rates in natural environments, these results may help explain a puzzle in conservation biology how some species seem able to persist in harsh environments with low average growth rates.
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Manojit Roy, Robert D. Holt, and Michael Barfield, "Temporal autocorrelation can enhance the persistence and abundance of metapopulations comprised of coupled sinks" 166:2 August 2005.