Demography, genetics, and connectivity raise extinction risk for urban pumas

This study modeled a small puma population in the Santa Monica Mountains near Los Angeles, integrating demography, genetics, and landscape connectivity to estimate extinction risk for cats hemmed in by freeways and development. The authors found that low connectivity, blocking immigration that would relieve inbreeding, combined with demographic stochasticity to substantially elevate the population's extinction probability over coming decades. The work is a landmark for showing how urbanization-driven isolation threatens a large carnivore through coupled genetic and demographic mechanisms, not habitat loss alone. It anchored the case for wildlife crossings over major highways and became a model for understanding fragmentation risk in human-dominated landscapes worldwide.