Demographic variation in space and time: Implications for conservation targeting

Morrison, Catriona A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4293-2717, Butler, Simon J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5111-5639, Clark, Jacquie A., Arizaga, Juan, Baltà, Oriol, Cepák, Jaroslav, Nebot, Arantza Leal, Piha, Markus, Thorup, Kasper, Wenninger, Thomas, Robinson, Robert A. and Gill, Jennifer A. (2022) Demographic variation in space and time: Implications for conservation targeting. Royal Society Open Science, 9 (3). ISSN 2054-5703

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Abstract

The dynamics of wild populations are governed by demographic rates which vary spatially and/or temporally in response to environmental conditions. Conservation actions for widespread but declining populations could potentially exploit this variation to target locations (or years) in which rates are low, but only if consistent spatial or temporal variation in demographic rates occurs. Using long-term demographic data for wild birds across Europe, we show that productivity tends to vary between sites (consistently across years), while survival rates tend to vary between years (consistently across sites), and that spatial synchrony is more common in survival than productivity. Identifying the conditions associated with low demographic rates could therefore facilitate spatially targeted actions to improve productivity or (less feasibly) forecasting and temporally targeting actions to boost survival. Decomposing spatio-temporal variation in demography can thus be a powerful tool for informing conservation policy and for revealing appropriate scales for actions to influence demographic rates.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Data accessibility statement: The R and JAGs code and data supporting this article are available from: https://osf.io/pf2t4/ Funding information: The study was funded by NERC (project nos. NE/L007665/1 and NE/T007/354/1). Data collection was financially supported by Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic (DKRVO 2019–2023/6.VIII.b, National Museum, 00023272) and the JNCC (on behalf of Natural England, Natural Resources Wales, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Department of the Environment, Northern Ireland).
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Biological Sciences
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Organisms and the Environment Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation
Related URLs:	https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/1...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	30 Mar 2022 13:31
Last Modified:	17 Nov 2024 07:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/84353
DOI:	10.1098/rsos.211671

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