New Publication on the role of dispersal in animal populations

Tavecchia, G., Tenan, S., Pradel, R., Igual, J.-M., Genovart, M. and Oro, D. 2016 : Climatic-driven vital rates do not always mean climate-driven population. Global Change Biology. doi10.1111/gcb.13330

Abstract: Current climatic changes have increased the need to forecast population responses to climate variability. A common approach to address this question is through models that project current population state using the functional relationship between demographic rates and climatic variables. We argue that this approach can lead to erroneous conclusions when interpopulation dispersal is not considered. We found that immigration can release the population from climate-driven trajectories even when local vital rates are climate dependent. We illustrated this using individual-based data on a trans-equatorial migratory seabird, the Scopoli's shearwater Calonectris diomedea, in which the variation of vital rates has been associated with large-scale climatic indices. We compared the population annual growth rate λ_i, estimated using local climate-driven parameters with ρ_i, a population growth rate directly estimated from individual information and that accounts for immigration. While λ_i varied as a function of climatic variables, reflecting the climate-dependent parameters, ρ_i did not, indicating that dispersal decouples the relationship between population growth and climate variables from that between climatic variables and vital rates. Our results suggest caution when assessing demographic effects of climatic variability especially in open populations for very mobile organisms such as fish, marine mammals, bats, or birds. When a population model cannot be validated or it is not detailed enough, ignoring immigration might lead to misleading climate-driven projections.

Highlight in Nature Climate Change Journal

Our paper on how sex in reptiles is temperature-dependant (TSD) and how climate change may affect species persistence has been highlighted in Nature Climate Change.

GEP on Frontiers' Facebook

The article by D. Oro on Seabirds and climate: knowledge, pitfalls and opportunities has been highlighted on Frontiers' Facebook !!! here

 

See also the other articles in the Research Topic on Seabirds and Climate edited by Dr. M. Frederiksen