Results
As expected, drought severity negatively affected the time to population extinction (Table 1, Fig. 3). The number of the patches affected by drought, however, had no effect (Table 1). Corridor quality positively affected the time of population extinction (Table 1), indicating that populations persisted longer in habitats connected by good quality corridors. There was no effect of any of the two-way interactions of treatments on the time of population extinction (Table 1).
Time negatively affected the variability of patch abundance (Table 2), suggesting an overall decrease in variability over time (Fig. 4). The variability of patch abundance was negatively affected by corridor quality, with higher variability found in landscapes connected with poor quality corridors. However, this was not affected by drought severity and number of drought patches (Table 2). There were significant interactions between time and corridor quality, and between time and drought severity (Table 2), suggesting that the effect of corridor quality, as well as drought severity, was largely time dependent. Interestingly, the different changes in variability over time between good and poor corridor quality suggest a contrasting response of populations to stressors due different levels of connectivity. In poor corridor quality, the rate of decrease in variability of patch abundance aggravated as drought continuedly stressed populations, whilst in good corridor quality the rate of decrease in variability eased (Fig. 4). There were no significant interactions between other two-way factors (Table 2).
Corridor quality negatively affected the maximum rate of population decline, with their declining rate being slower in good than poor corridor quality treatment. Surprisingly, increased number of drought patches negatively affected the rate of population decline, but drought severity had no effect (Table 3, Fig. 5). Corridor quality positively interacted with number of drought patches (Table 3). There were no effects of other two-way interactions on the maximum rate of population decline (Table 3).