Allee Effect - Mechanisms

Mechanisms

Due to its definition as the positive correlation between population density and average fitness, the mechanisms for which an Allee effect arises are therefore inherently tied to survival and reproduction. In general, these Allee effect mechanisms arise from cooperation or facilitation among individuals in the species. Examples of such cooperative behaviors include better mate finding, environmental conditioning, and group defense against predators. As these mechanisms are more easily observable in the field, they tend to be more commonly associated with the Allee effect concept. Nevertheless, mechanisms of Allee effect that are less conspicuous such as inbreeding depression and sex ratio bias should be considered as well.