Assessing seasonal demographic covariation to understand environmental-change impacts on a hibernating mammal

Abstract

Maria Paniw,1,2* Dylan Z. Natural populations are exposed to seasonal variation in environmental factors that simultane- Childs,3 Kenneth B. Armitage,4 ously affect several demographic rates (survival, development and reproduction). The resulting Daniel T. Blumstein,5,6 Julien covariation in these rates determines population dynamics, but accounting for its numerous biotic G. A. Martin,7,8 Madan K. and abiotic drivers is a significant challenge. Here, we use a factor-analytic approach to capture Oli9 and Arpat Ozgul1 partially unobserved drivers of seasonal population dynamics. We use 40 years of individual-based demography from yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer) to fit and project population The peer review history for this arti- models that account for seasonal demographic covariation using a latent variable. We show that cle is available at https://publons.c this latent variable, by producing positive covariation among winter demographic rates, depicts a om/publon/10.1111/ele.13459 measure of environmental quality. Simultaneously, negative responses of winter survival and reproductive-status change to declining environmental quality result in a higher risk of population quasi-extinction, regardless of summer demography where recruitment takes place. We demon- strate how complex environmental processes can be summarized to understand population persis- tence in seasonal environments.

Local Knowledge Graph (24 entities)

Related Works

Items connected by shared entities, co-authorship, citations, or semantic similarity.

Cited By (20 times, 8 in Knowledge Hub)

References (105)

13 in Knowledge Hub, 92 external