Vortex is an individual-based simulation of deterministic forces as well as demographic, environmental and genetic stochastic events on wildlife populations. It can model many of the extinction vortices that can threaten persistence of small populations. The program models population dynamics as discrete, sequential events that occur according to probabilities that are random variables following user-specified distributions. Also, it simulates a population by stepping through a series of events that describe an annual cycle of a typical sexually reproducing, diploid organism: mate selection, reproduction, mortality, increment of age by one year, dispersal among populations, removals, supplementation, and then truncation (if necessary) to the carrying capacity.
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