To find the percentage decrease in population per year, we can start from the multiplication factor given. If the current population is multiplied by 0.986 to find the next year's population, we can express this relationship mathematically.
Let \( P \) be the current population. The next year's population can be represented as:
\[ P_{next} = P \times 0.986 \]
To find the decrease in population, we calculate the difference between the current population and the next year's population:
\[ \text{Decrease} = P - P_{next} = P - P \times 0.986 = P(1 - 0.986) = P \times 0.014 \]
Next, we need to express this decrease as a percentage of the current population:
\[ \text{Percentage decrease} = \left( \frac{\text{Decrease}}{P} \right) \times 100 = \left( \frac{P \times 0.014}{P} \right) \times 100 = 0.014 \times 100 = 1.4% \]
Therefore, the population decreases by 1.4% per year.
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