Eur. Phys. J. B 65, 341-346 (2008)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2008-00157-2

How bad is to be slow-reacting?

On the effect of the delay in response to a changing environment on a population's survival

¹ University of Geneva, Theoretical Physics Department, Quai E. Ansermet no. 24, 1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland
² Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of Wrocław, Pl. M. Borna 9, 50-204 Wrocław, Poland

Corresponding author: ^a Ioana.Bena@physics.unige.ch

Received: 17 January 2008
Revised: 19 March 2008
Published online: 16 April 2008

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 populations with low degree of mutation-induced variability, being "slow-reacting" decreases the extinction risk due to environmental changes. On the contrary, for populations with high mutation amplitude, the delayed reaction reduces the survival chances.