The diversity of population responses to environmental change

Fernando Colchero (1) , Owen r. Jones (1) , Dalia Conde (1) , David M. Hodgson (2) , Felix Zajitschek (3) , Benedikt Schmidt (4) , Aurelio Malo (5) , Susan Alberts (6) , Peter Becker (7) , Sandra Bouwhuis (8) , Anne Bronikowski (9) , Kristel Vleeschouwer (10) , Richard Delahay (11) , Stefan Dummermuth (12) , Eduardo Fernández‐duque (13) , John Frisenvænge (14) , Martin Hesselsøe (14) , Sam Larson (15) , Jean-François Lemaître (16) , Jennifer Mcdonald (17) , David Miller (18) , Colin O'Donnell (19) , Craig Packer (20) , Becky Raboy (21) , Chris Reading (22) , Erik Wapstra (23) , Henri Weimerskirch (24) , Geoffrey While (24) , Anne Baudisch (25) , Thomas Flatt (26) , Tim Coulson (27) , Jean‐michel Gaillard (16)

1 Interdisciplinary Center on Population Dynamics
2 University of Leeds
3 Evolution and Ecology Research Centre and School of Biological [Australia]
4 UZH - Universität Zürich [Zürich] = University of Zurich
5 Department of Zoology [Oxford]
6 Departments of Biology and Evolutionary Anthropology [Duke Univ., USA]
7 Institut of Avian Research An der Vogelwarte [Germany]
8 Institute of Avian Research
9 Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology
10 Centre for Research and Conservation [Belgium]
11 National Wildlife Management Centre [UK]
12 Info Fauna Karch 2000
13 Department of Anthropology [New Haven, USA]
14 Amphi Consult [Denmark]
15 Department of Anthropology [University of Pennsylvania]
16 LBBE - Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive - UMR 5558
17 University of Exeter
18 Department of Ecosystem Science and Management [USA]
19 Department of Conservation [Christchurch, New Zealand]
20 College of Biological Sciences [USA]
21 EEB - Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology [University of Toronto]
22 Centre for Ecology and Hydrology [Oxfordhire, UK]
23 School of Biological Sciences [Australia]
24 CEBC - Centre d'Études Biologiques de Chizé - UMR 7372
25 Department of Mathematics and Computer Science [Denmark]
26 Department of Ecology and Evolution
27 Department of Zoology

The current extinction and climate change crises pressure us to predict population dynamics with ever-greater accuracy. Although predictions rest on the well-advanced theory of age-structured populations, two key issues remain poorly explored. Specifically, how the age-dependency in demographic rates and the year-to-year interactions between survival and fecundity affect stochastic population growth rates. We use inference, simulations and mathematical derivations to explore how environmental perturbations determine population growth rates for populations with different age-specific demographic rates and when ages are reduced to stages. We find that stagevs. age-based models can produce markedly divergent stochastic population growth rates. The differences are most pronounced when there are survival-fecundity-trade-offs, which reduce the variance in the population growth rate. Finally, the expected value and variance of the stochastic growth rates of populations with different age-specific demographic rates can diverge to the extent that, while some populations may thrive, others will inevitably go extinct.

Mots clés: Age-structured population models; Bayesian inference; fecundity; mortality; survival

Domaines: Sciences de l'environnement

Fernando Colchero, Owen r. Jones, Dalia Conde, David M. Hodgson, Felix Zajitschek, et al.. The diversity of population responses to environmental change. Ecology Letters, 2019, 22 (342-353), ⟨10.1111/ele.13195⟩. ⟨hal-02200582⟩