Quantifying the probability of evolutionary rescue

Abstract

While evolutionary rescue is now a well-established term, there are subtleties in precisely defining it and conceptual complications in quantifying its probability. In this Perspective, we pay special attention to three issues: 1) How do we know that a population would go extinct in the absence of evolution? 2) How do we determine the probability of rescue if persistence is possible in the absence of evolution? 3) How can we capture the time-varying effect of evolution on persistence? Through this, we gain a dynamic and nuanced view that goes beyond certain extinction and ultimate persistence and demonstrate how to quantify the time-varying effect of evolution on persistence from extinction times of ensembles of evolving and non-evolving populations.

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BibTeX RIS

BibTeX

@misc{osmond2026quantifying,
  title = {{Quantifying the probability of evolutionary rescue}},
  author = {Matthew Osmond and Hildegard Uecker and Carla Alejandre and Ernesto Berríos-Caro and Dale Clement and Peter Czuppon and Léonard Dekens and Puneeth Deraje and Jeremy Draghi and Asad Hasan and Robert D. Holt and Teemu Kuosmanen and Alexander Longcamp and Loïc Marrec and Guillaume Martin and Christin Nyhoegen and Maria Orive and Vrinda Ravi Kumar and Remus Stana and Lindi Wahl and Masato Yamamichi},
  howpublished = {EcoEvoRxiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.32942/x2tx1r},
  url = {https://ecoevorxiv.org/repository/view/15256/},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}

RIS

TY  - UNPB
TI  - Quantifying the probability of evolutionary rescue
AU  - Matthew Osmond
AU  - Hildegard Uecker
AU  - Carla Alejandre
AU  - Ernesto Berríos-Caro
AU  - Dale Clement
AU  - Peter Czuppon
AU  - Léonard Dekens
AU  - Puneeth Deraje
AU  - Jeremy Draghi
AU  - Asad Hasan
AU  - Robert D. Holt
AU  - Teemu Kuosmanen
AU  - Alexander Longcamp
AU  - Loïc Marrec
AU  - Guillaume Martin
AU  - Christin Nyhoegen
AU  - Maria Orive
AU  - Vrinda Ravi Kumar
AU  - Remus Stana
AU  - Lindi Wahl
AU  - Masato Yamamichi
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/28
PB  - EcoEvoRxiv
DO  - 10.32942/x2tx1r
UR  - https://ecoevorxiv.org/repository/view/15256/
AB  - While evolutionary rescue is now a well-established term, there are subtleties in precisely defining it and conceptual complications in quantifying its probability. In this Perspective, we pay special attention to three issues: 1) How do we know that a population would go extinct in the absence of evolution? 2) How do we determine the probability of rescue if persistence is possible in the absence of evolution? 3) How can we capture the time-varying effect of evolution on persistence? Through this, we gain a dynamic and nuanced view that goes beyond certain extinction and ultimate persistence and demonstrate how to quantify the time-varying effect of evolution on persistence from extinction times of ensembles of evolving and non-evolving populations.
ER  -

Abstract

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