in reality, the population seems more likely to go extinct because of poor environmental conditions, random environmental fluctuations, loss of cultural knowledge (which, like genetic variation, goes down in small populations), or lack of physical goods and technology, none of which have much to do with genetic variation.
This matches what I had tentatively believed before seeing your comment—i.e., I had suspected that genetic diversity wasn’t among the very most important considerations when modelling odds of recovery from collapse. So I’ve now updated to more confidence in that view.
I raised MVP (from a genetic perspective) just as one of many considerations, and primarily because I’d seen it mentioned in The Precipice. (Well, Ord doesn’t make it 100% clear that he’s just talking about MVP from a genetic perspective, but the surrounding text suggests he is. Hanson also devotes two paragraphs to the topic, again alongside other considerations.)
Perhaps we should keep the term “minimum viable population size” but use a broader definition based on likelihood to survive, period. I see that Wikipedia uses a broad definition that includes extinction due to demographic and environmental stochasticity, but often MVP is used as in the OP to refer just to extinction due to genetic reasons, so it is important to clarify terms.
I’d agree that clarifying what one means is important. This is why I explicitly noted that here I was using MVP in a sense focused only on genetic diversity. To touch on the other “aspects” of MVP, I also have “What population size is required for economic specialisation, technological development, etc.?”
It seems fine to me for people to also use MVP in a sense referring to all-things-considered ability to survive, or in a sense focused only on e.g. economic specialisation, as long as they make it clear that that’s what they’re doing. Indeed, I do the latter myself here: I write there that a seemingly important parameter for modelling odds of recovery is “Minimum viable population for sufficient specialisation to maintain industrialised societies, scientific progress, etc.”
Another way in which the concept of a MVP is too simplistic...
I wasn’t aware of these points; thanks for sharing them :)
Thanks for your response and the link to your newer post and the Ord and Hanson refs. I’ll just add a thought I had while reading
This is why I explicitly noted that here I was using MVP in a sense focused only on genetic diversity. To touch on the other “aspects” of MVP, I also have “What population size is required for economic specialisation, technological development, etc.?”
It seems fine to me for people to also use MVP in a sense referring to all-things-considered ability to survive, or in a sense focused only on e.g. economic specialisation...
This all makes sense, but sounds to me like to be at risk of leaving out the population/conservation biology perspective (beyond genetic considerations). A large part of what motivated me to write my original post is that I do think it is indeed valuable to use frameworks from population and conservation biology to study human extinction risk - but it is important to include all factors identified in those fields as being important; namely, environmental and demographic stochasticity, as well as habitat fragmentation and degradation, which could pose much greater risks than inbreeding and genetic drift.
Yeah, that sounds right. Those factors were left out just because I didn’t think of including them (because I don’t know very much about these frameworks from population and conservation biology), rather than because I explicitly decided to include them, and I’d guess you’re right that attending to those factors and using those frameworks would be useful. So thanks for highlighting this :)
There are probably also various other “crucial questions” people could highlight, as well as questions that would fit under these questions and get more into the fine-grained details, and I’d encourage people to comment here, comment in the google doc, or create their own documents to highlight those things. (I say this partly because this post has a very broad scope, so a vast array of fields will have relevant knowledge, and I of course have very limited knowledge of most of those fields.)
Very interesting, thanks! Strong upvoted.
This matches what I had tentatively believed before seeing your comment—i.e., I had suspected that genetic diversity wasn’t among the very most important considerations when modelling odds of recovery from collapse. So I’ve now updated to more confidence in that view.
I raised MVP (from a genetic perspective) just as one of many considerations, and primarily because I’d seen it mentioned in The Precipice. (Well, Ord doesn’t make it 100% clear that he’s just talking about MVP from a genetic perspective, but the surrounding text suggests he is. Hanson also devotes two paragraphs to the topic, again alongside other considerations.)
I’d agree that clarifying what one means is important. This is why I explicitly noted that here I was using MVP in a sense focused only on genetic diversity. To touch on the other “aspects” of MVP, I also have “What population size is required for economic specialisation, technological development, etc.?”
It seems fine to me for people to also use MVP in a sense referring to all-things-considered ability to survive, or in a sense focused only on e.g. economic specialisation, as long as they make it clear that that’s what they’re doing. Indeed, I do the latter myself here: I write there that a seemingly important parameter for modelling odds of recovery is “Minimum viable population for sufficient specialisation to maintain industrialised societies, scientific progress, etc.”
I wasn’t aware of these points; thanks for sharing them :)
Thanks for your response and the link to your newer post and the Ord and Hanson refs. I’ll just add a thought I had while reading
This all makes sense, but sounds to me like to be at risk of leaving out the population/conservation biology perspective (beyond genetic considerations). A large part of what motivated me to write my original post is that I do think it is indeed valuable to use frameworks from population and conservation biology to study human extinction risk - but it is important to include all factors identified in those fields as being important; namely, environmental and demographic stochasticity, as well as habitat fragmentation and degradation, which could pose much greater risks than inbreeding and genetic drift.
Yeah, that sounds right. Those factors were left out just because I didn’t think of including them (because I don’t know very much about these frameworks from population and conservation biology), rather than because I explicitly decided to include them, and I’d guess you’re right that attending to those factors and using those frameworks would be useful. So thanks for highlighting this :)
There are probably also various other “crucial questions” people could highlight, as well as questions that would fit under these questions and get more into the fine-grained details, and I’d encourage people to comment here, comment in the google doc, or create their own documents to highlight those things. (I say this partly because this post has a very broad scope, so a vast array of fields will have relevant knowledge, and I of course have very limited knowledge of most of those fields.)