Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-244) and index.

Genetics and demography of small populations / James N.M. Smith and Lukas F. Keller -- Song sparrows, Mandarte Island, and methods / James N.M. Smith -- Life history : patterns of reproduction and survival / James N.M. Smith, Amy B. Marr and Wesley M. Hochachka -- Fluctuations in numbers : population regulation and catastrophic mortality / James N.M. Smith [and others] -- The song sparrow and the brown-headed cowbird / James N.M. Smith [and others] -- Social mechanisms : dominance, territoriality, song, and the mating system / James N.M. Smith [and others] -- The genetic consequences of small population size : inbreeding and loss of genetic variation / Lukas F. Keller, Amy B. Marr and Jane M. Reid -- Immigrants and gene flow in small populations / Amy B. Marr -- Unequal lifetime reproductive sucess and its implication for small isolated populations / Wesley M. Hochachka -- Population viability in the presence and absence of cowbirds, catastrophic mortality, and immigration / Peter Arcese and Amy B. Marr -- Genetic and demographic risks to small populations revisited / James N.M. Smith, Lukas F. Keller and Jane M. Reid. This book explores the factors affecting the survival of small populations. As the human impact on Earth expands, populations of many wild species are being squeezed into smaller and smaller habitats. As a consequence, they face an increasing threat of extinction. National and international conservation groups rush to add these populations, species and sub-species to their existing endangered and threatened lists. In nations with strong conservation laws, listing often triggers elaborate plans to rescue declining populations and restore their habitats. The authors review these theoretical ideas, the existing data, and explore the question: how well do small and isolated populations actually perform? Their case study group is the song sparrows of Mandarte Island, British Columbia. This population is small enough and isolated enough so that all individuals can be uniquely marked and their survival and reproduction monitored over many generations. This is one of the strongest long-term ecological studies of a contained vertebrate population, now in its 31st year.