Influences of large-scale climatic variability on reindeer population dynamics: implications for reindeer husbandry in Norway

We examined potential synchrony in the growth rates of three Svalbard reindeer (Rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus) populations and tested whether this pattern may result from correlated environmental variation. Two neighbouring populations had synchronized dynamics during the study period, while a more distant population showed different temporal variation. Climatic forcing (the Moran effect) was a likely synchronizing mechanism in combination with contrasting density-dependence patterns between the synchronous and asynchronous populations. Local climate was a more important synchronizing agent than a regional climate index (the Arctic Oscillation). Nevertheless, our results also suggest that variation in climate at a large scale may be important. Based on indirect measurements of dispersal/migration, our findings indicate that this factor does not play a key role in the spatial synchrony of Svalbard reindeer population dynamics.

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Analysis of 220 Years of Floodplain Population Dynamics in the US at Different Spatial Scales

Water ◽

10.3390/w13020141 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (2) ◽

pp. 141

Author(s):

Firoza Akhter ◽

Maurizio Mazzoleni ◽

Luigia Brandimarte

Keyword(s):

Population Dynamics ◽

Large Scale ◽

Spatial Scales ◽

National Level ◽

State Level ◽

Economic Activities ◽

Protection Measures ◽

Management Planning ◽

The Us ◽

Over Time

In this study, we explore the long-term trends of floodplain population dynamics at different spatial scales in the contiguous United States (U.S.). We exploit different types of datasets from 1790–2010—i.e., decadal spatial distribution for the population density in the US, global floodplains dataset, large-scale data of flood occurrence and damage, and structural and nonstructural flood protection measures for the US. At the national level, we found that the population initially settled down within the floodplains and then spread across its territory over time. At the state level, we observed that flood damages and national protection measures might have contributed to a learning effect, which in turn, shaped the floodplain population dynamics over time. Finally, at the county level, other socio-economic factors such as local flood insurances, economic activities, and socio-political context may predominantly influence the dynamics. Our study shows that different influencing factors affect floodplain population dynamics at different spatial scales. These facts are crucial for a reliable development and implementation of flood risk management planning.

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Fencing affects African wild dog movement patterns and population dynamics

Oryx ◽

10.1017/s0030605320000320 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-9

Author(s):

Helen M. K. O'Neill ◽

Sarah M. Durant ◽

Stefanie Strebel ◽

Rosie Woodroffe

Keyword(s):

Population Dynamics ◽

Large Scale ◽

Animal Movement ◽

Landscape Connectivity ◽

Ecological Impact ◽

Movement Patterns ◽

Wrong Side ◽

African Wild Dog ◽

Wild Dog ◽

Wild Dogs

Abstract Wildlife fences are often considered an important tool in conservation. Fences are used in attempts to prevent human–wildlife conflict and reduce poaching, despite known negative impacts on landscape connectivity and animal movement patterns. Such impacts are likely to be particularly important for wide-ranging species, such as the African wild dog Lycaon pictus, which requires large areas of continuous habitat to fulfil its resource requirements. Laikipia County in northern Kenya is an important area for wild dogs but new wildlife fences are increasingly being built in this ecosystem. Using a long-term dataset from the area's free-ranging wild dog population, we evaluated the effect of wildlife fence structure on the ability of wild dogs to cross them. The extent to which fences impeded wild dog movement differed between fence designs, although individuals crossed fences of all types. Purpose-built fence gaps increased passage through relatively impermeable fences. Nevertheless, low fence permeability can lead to packs, or parts of packs, becoming trapped on the wrong side of a fence, with consequences for population dynamics. Careful evaluation should be given to the necessity of erecting fences; ecological impact assessments should incorporate evaluation of impacts on animal movement patterns and should be undertaken for all large-scale fencing interventions. Where fencing is unavoidable, projects should use the most permeable fencing structures possible, both in the design of the fence and including as many purpose-built gaps as possible, to minimize impacts on wide-ranging wildlife.

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Demographic effects of interacting species: exploring stable coexistence under increased climatic variability in a semiarid shrub community

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-82571-z ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Ana I. García-Cervigón ◽

Pedro F. Quintana-Ascencio ◽

Adrián Escudero ◽

Merari E. Ferrer-Cervantes ◽

Ana M. Sánchez ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Population Dynamics ◽

Species Coexistence ◽

Climatic Factors ◽

Demographic Data ◽

Climatic Variability ◽

Biotic Interactions ◽

Vital Rates ◽

Climatic Fluctuations ◽

Demographic Models ◽

Shrub Community

AbstractPopulation persistence is strongly determined by climatic variability. Changes in the patterns of climatic events linked to global warming may alter population dynamics, but their effects may be strongly modulated by biotic interactions. Plant populations interact with each other in such a way that responses to climate of a single population may impact the dynamics of the whole community. In this study, we assess how climate variability affects persistence and coexistence of two dominant plant species in a semiarid shrub community on gypsum soils. We use 9 years of demographic data to parameterize demographic models and to simulate population dynamics under different climatic and ecological scenarios. We observe that populations of both coexisting species may respond to common climatic fluctuations both similarly and in idiosyncratic ways, depending on the yearly combination of climatic factors. Biotic interactions (both within and among species) modulate some of their vital rates, but their effects on population dynamics highly depend on climatic fluctuations. Our results indicate that increased levels of climatic variability may alter interspecific relationships. These alterations might potentially affect species coexistence, disrupting competitive hierarchies and ultimately leading to abrupt changes in community composition.

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Links between global terrestrial water storage and large-scale modes of climatic variability

Journal of Hydrology ◽

10.1016/j.jhydrol.2021.126419 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 126419

Author(s):

Lanlan Guo ◽

TieWei Li ◽

Deliang Chen ◽

Junguo Liu ◽

Bin He ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Large Scale ◽

Climatic Variability ◽

Water Storage ◽

Terrestrial Water Storage ◽

Terrestrial Water

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Australian agricultural scale and corporate agroholdings: environmental and climatic impacts

International Food and Agribusiness Management Review ◽

10.22434/ifamr2016.0027 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 20 (2) ◽

pp. 187-190 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Bradley Plunkett ◽

Andrew Duff ◽

Ross Kingwell ◽

David Feldman

Keyword(s):

Large Scale ◽

Climatic Variability ◽

Institutional Setting ◽

Corporate Ownership ◽

Family Structures ◽

Climatic Impacts ◽

The Stability ◽

Average Size ◽

The Impact ◽

Concentrate Production

The average size of Australian farms in scale and revenue are the globe’s largest. This scale is a result, in part, of low average rural population densities; development patterns in broadacre production; low levels of effective public policy transfers; a stable and suitable institutional setting suitable for corporate and other large scale investment; and low yields. It is also a factor of the natural variability of the country’s climatic systems which have contributed to the scale of extensive northern cattle production; this variability has implications for the pattern of ownership of broadacre and extensive production. Corporate ownership, tends to concentrate production aggregations at sufficient scale to offset its additional overheads in areas of relative climatic stability and to replicate these agroholding aggregations spatially to protect the stability of revenue flows. Family structures are more dominant in areas of greater climatic variability. Of interest is the impact that any increasing climatic variability (versus rapid changes in technology) may have upon this pattern.

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Bark Beetle Population Dynamics in the Anthropocene: Challenges and Solutions

10.20944/preprints201810.0640.v1 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Peter H. W. Biedermann ◽

Jean-Claude Grégoire ◽

Axel Gruppe ◽

Jonas Hagge ◽

Almuth Hammerbacher ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Population Dynamics ◽

Bark Beetle ◽

Collaborative Research ◽

Bark Beetles ◽

Large Scale ◽

Ips Typographus ◽

Ecological Framework ◽

Beetle Population ◽

Spruce Bark ◽

Important Pest

Tree-killing bark beetles are the most economically important insects in conifer forests worldwide. Yet  despite >200 years of research, the drivers of population eruptions or crashes are still not fully understood, precluding reliable predictions of the effects of global change on beetle population dynamics and impacts on ecosystems and humans.  We critically analyze potential biotic and abiotic drivers of population dynamics of the European spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus) and present a novel ecological framework that integrates the multiple drivers governing this bark beetle system. We call for large-scale collaborative research efforts to improve our understanding of the population dynamics of this important pest; an approach that might serve as a blueprint for other eruptive forest insects.

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Synchronous combined effects of fishing and climate within a demersal community

ICES Journal of Marine Science ◽

10.1093/icesjms/fss181 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 70 (2) ◽

pp. 319-328 ◽

Cited By ~ 25

Author(s):

Antoni Quetglas ◽

Francesc Ordines ◽

Manuel Hidalgo ◽

Sebastià Monserrat ◽

Susana Ruiz ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Variability ◽

Age Structure ◽

Large Scale ◽

Southern Oscillation ◽

Climatic Variability ◽

Early Period ◽

Combined Effects ◽

Population Fluctuations ◽

Fishing Activity ◽

The Mediterranean

Abstract Quetglas, A., Ordines, F., Hidalgo, M., Monserrat, S., Ruiz, S., Amores, Á., Moranta, J., and Massutí, E. 2013. Synchronous combined effects of fishing and climate within a demersal community. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 70: 319–328. Accumulating evidence shows that fishing exploitation and environmental variables can synergistically affect the population dynamics of exploited populations. Here, we document an interaction between fishing impact and climate variability that triggered a synchronic response in the population fluctuations of six exploited species in the Mediterranean from 1965–2008. Throughout this period, the fishing activity experienced a sharp increase in fishing effort, which caused all stocks to shift from an early period of underexploitation to a later period of overexploitation. This change altered the population resilience of the stocks and brought about an increase in the sensitivity of its dynamics to climate variability. Landings increased exponentially when underexploited but displayed an oscillatory behaviour once overexploited. Climatic indices, related to the Mediterranean mesoscale hydrography and large-scale north Atlantic climatic variability, seemed to affect the species with broader age structure and longer lifespan, while the global-scale El Niño Southern Oscillation index (ENSO) positively influenced the population abundances of species with a narrow age structure and short lifespan. The species affected by ENSO preferentially inhabit the continental shelf, suggesting that Mediterranean shelf ecosystems are sensitive to the hydroclimatic variability linked to global climate.

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Space and time predictions of schistosomiasis snail host population dynamics across hydrologic regimes in Burkina Faso

Geospatial health ◽

10.4081/gh.2019.796 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Javier Perez-Saez ◽

Theophile Mande ◽

Andrea Rinaldo

Keyword(s):

Population Dynamics ◽

Burkina Faso ◽

Spatial Patterns ◽

Large Scale ◽

Remotely Sensed ◽

Host Population ◽

Snail Host ◽

Intermediate Hosts ◽

National Scale ◽

Temperature And Precipitation

The ecology of the aquatic snails that serve as obligatory intermediate hosts of human schistosomiasis is driven by climatic and hydrological factors which result in specific spatial patterns of occurrence and abundance. These patterns in turn affect, jointly with other determinants, the geography of the disease and the timing of transmission windows, with direct implications for the success of control and elimination programmes in the endemic countries. We address the spatial distribution of the intermediate hosts and their seasonal population dynamics within a predictive ecohydrological framework developed at the national scale for Burkina Faso, West Africa. The approach blends river network-wide information on hydrological ephemerality which conditions snail habitat suitability together with ensembles of discrete time ecological models forced by remotely sensed estimates of temperature and precipitation. The models were validated against up to four years of monthly snail abundance data. Simulations of model ensembles accounting for the uncertainty in remotely sensed products adequately reproduce observed snail demographic fluctuations observed in the field across habitat types, and produce national scale predictions by accounting for spatial patterns of hydrological conditions in the country. Geospatial estimates of seasonal snail abundance underpin large-scale, spatially explicit predictions of schistosomiasis incidence. This work can therefore contribute to the development of disease control and elimination programmes.

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Population Dynamics of the ‘Golden Tides’ Seaweed, Sargassum horneri, on the Southwestern Coast of Korea: The Extent and Formation of Golden Tides

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su12072903 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (7) ◽

pp. 2903 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Sun Kyeong Choi ◽

Hyun-Ju Oh ◽

Suk-Hyun Yun ◽

Hyuk Je Lee ◽

Kyounghoon Lee ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Population Dynamics ◽

Large Scale ◽

Marine Ecosystem ◽

Life Cycles ◽

Sargassum Horneri ◽

Gene Markers ◽

Average Biomass ◽

Environmental Difference ◽

Few Data ◽

Specific Growth Rates

Since 2015, troublesome masses of floating Sargassum horneri have been introduced via ocean currents and winds to the southwestern coastline of Korea, including Jeju Island. These massive mats have caused considerable damage to the aquaculture industry, tourism, and the marine ecosystem. Most previous studies of S. horneri have focused on cultivation, the development of gene markers, and photosynthetic activity, but few data on population dynamics are available. We investigated the population dynamics of native S. horneri off the southwestern coast of Korea with the aim of predicting the formation of golden tides. Populations at two sites had obligate annual life cycles. Thalli were recruited during the period September–November, grew during the period December–April, and senesced by July. This pattern reflected seasonal trends in water temperature. Specific growth rates and heights of the thalli at Munseom were significantly higher than those at Jindo. The greatest environmental difference between the two sites is probably the degree of exposure to wave action. Mortality density (thalli lost per unit area) in the Munseom population was highest during the period December–January (i.e., 2–3 months after recruitment) and in March. Most thalli in the Jindo population died off in July when water temperatures increased. The maximum average biomass of S. horneri thalli detaching from the substrata reached 1.6 kg fresh weight m–2 during January and March. Thus, large-scale drifting mats were formed by S. horneri detachment from the substrata. Despite the differences in space and environment between China and Korea, our findings will enable quantitative assessments of the overall floating Sargassum biomass in the East China and Yellow Seas.

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