
The Invariance Maintenance Condition (IMC) [Thomas, 2026a] identifies the class of systems that actively maintain structural invariants under perturbation at measurable cost. This paper demonstrates that self-regulating populations satisfying density-dependent demographic dynamics meet all four IMC applicability conditions by their own internal logic. We provide an explicit variable-by-variable correspondence between IMC objects and standard population ecology objects, expressed in demographic and life-history terms. The maintenance cost column carries thermodynamic grounding via trophic efficiency, making this translation the second most directly grounded in energy units after nonequilibrium thermodynamics. We derive five predictions: a precursor demographic signal in vital rates preceding abundance decline; recovery hysteresis requiring active augmentation rather than passive perturbation removal; the extinction debt phenomenon as a structural consequence of the critical regime; intervention transfer efficacy between ecologically isomorphic populations; and a destruction threshold asymmetry distinguishing reversible population depression from irreversible carrying-capacity elimination. The ecology translation contributes one structural insight that is novel to the other translations in the series: the IMC’s invariant φ must be defined as a demographic regime rather than as an abundance threshold, because abundance is a partial and lagging indicator of viability regime membership. This distinction has direct implications for conservation monitoring practice.
recruitment collapse, conservation monitoring, vital rates, regime shift, population regulation, minimum viable population, abundance vs viability, demographic viabillity, timescale indepedence, extinction debt
recruitment collapse, conservation monitoring, vital rates, regime shift, population regulation, minimum viable population, abundance vs viability, demographic viabillity, timescale indepedence, extinction debt
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