Evaluating the demographic buffering hypothesis with vital rates estimated for Weddell seals from 30 years of mark–recapture data
Summary 1. Life‐history theory predicts that those vital rates that make larger contributions to population growth rate ought to be more strongly buffered against environmental variability than are those that are less important. Despite the importance of the theory for predicting demographic respons...
Published in: | Journal of Animal Ecology |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Wiley
2011
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2656.2011.01902.x https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1365-2656.2011.01902.x https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1365-2656.2011.01902.x |
id |
crwiley:10.1111/j.1365-2656.2011.01902.x |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
crwiley:10.1111/j.1365-2656.2011.01902.x 2024-06-02T08:15:46+00:00 Evaluating the demographic buffering hypothesis with vital rates estimated for Weddell seals from 30 years of mark–recapture data Rotella, Jay J. Link, William A. Chambert, Thierry Stauffer, Glenn E. Garrott, Robert A. 2011 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2656.2011.01902.x https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1365-2656.2011.01902.x https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1365-2656.2011.01902.x en eng Wiley http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#vor Journal of Animal Ecology volume 81, issue 1, page 162-173 ISSN 0021-8790 1365-2656 journal-article 2011 crwiley https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2656.2011.01902.x 2024-05-03T10:43:39Z Summary 1. Life‐history theory predicts that those vital rates that make larger contributions to population growth rate ought to be more strongly buffered against environmental variability than are those that are less important. Despite the importance of the theory for predicting demographic responses to changes in the environment, it is not yet known how pervasive demographic buffering is in animal populations because the validity of most existing studies has been called into question because of methodological deficiencies. 2. We tested for demographic buffering in the southern‐most breeding mammal population in the world using data collected from 5558 known‐age female Weddell seals over 30 years. We first estimated all vital rates simultaneously with mark–recapture analysis and then estimated process variance and covariance in those rates using a hierarchical Bayesian approach. We next calculated the population growth rate’s sensitivity to changes in each of the vital rates and tested for evidence of demographic buffering by comparing properly scaled values of sensitivity and process variance in vital rates. 3. We found evidence of positive process covariance between vital rates, which indicates that all vital rates are affected in the same direction by changes in annual environment. Despite the positive correlations, we found strong evidence that demographic buffering occurred through reductions in variation in the vital rates to which population growth rate was most sensitive. Process variation in vital rates was inversely related to sensitivity measures such that variation was greatest in breeding probabilities, intermediate for survival rates of young animals and lowest for survival rates of older animals. 4. Our work contributes to a small but growing set of studies that have used rigorous methods on long‐term, detailed data to investigate demographic responses to environmental variation. The information from these studies improves our understanding of life‐history evolution in stochastic environments and ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Weddell Seals Wiley Online Library Weddell Journal of Animal Ecology 81 1 162 173 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Wiley Online Library |
op_collection_id |
crwiley |
language |
English |
description |
Summary 1. Life‐history theory predicts that those vital rates that make larger contributions to population growth rate ought to be more strongly buffered against environmental variability than are those that are less important. Despite the importance of the theory for predicting demographic responses to changes in the environment, it is not yet known how pervasive demographic buffering is in animal populations because the validity of most existing studies has been called into question because of methodological deficiencies. 2. We tested for demographic buffering in the southern‐most breeding mammal population in the world using data collected from 5558 known‐age female Weddell seals over 30 years. We first estimated all vital rates simultaneously with mark–recapture analysis and then estimated process variance and covariance in those rates using a hierarchical Bayesian approach. We next calculated the population growth rate’s sensitivity to changes in each of the vital rates and tested for evidence of demographic buffering by comparing properly scaled values of sensitivity and process variance in vital rates. 3. We found evidence of positive process covariance between vital rates, which indicates that all vital rates are affected in the same direction by changes in annual environment. Despite the positive correlations, we found strong evidence that demographic buffering occurred through reductions in variation in the vital rates to which population growth rate was most sensitive. Process variation in vital rates was inversely related to sensitivity measures such that variation was greatest in breeding probabilities, intermediate for survival rates of young animals and lowest for survival rates of older animals. 4. Our work contributes to a small but growing set of studies that have used rigorous methods on long‐term, detailed data to investigate demographic responses to environmental variation. The information from these studies improves our understanding of life‐history evolution in stochastic environments and ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Rotella, Jay J. Link, William A. Chambert, Thierry Stauffer, Glenn E. Garrott, Robert A. |
spellingShingle |
Rotella, Jay J. Link, William A. Chambert, Thierry Stauffer, Glenn E. Garrott, Robert A. Evaluating the demographic buffering hypothesis with vital rates estimated for Weddell seals from 30 years of mark–recapture data |
author_facet |
Rotella, Jay J. Link, William A. Chambert, Thierry Stauffer, Glenn E. Garrott, Robert A. |
author_sort |
Rotella, Jay J. |
title |
Evaluating the demographic buffering hypothesis with vital rates estimated for Weddell seals from 30 years of mark–recapture data |
title_short |
Evaluating the demographic buffering hypothesis with vital rates estimated for Weddell seals from 30 years of mark–recapture data |
title_full |
Evaluating the demographic buffering hypothesis with vital rates estimated for Weddell seals from 30 years of mark–recapture data |
title_fullStr |
Evaluating the demographic buffering hypothesis with vital rates estimated for Weddell seals from 30 years of mark–recapture data |
title_full_unstemmed |
Evaluating the demographic buffering hypothesis with vital rates estimated for Weddell seals from 30 years of mark–recapture data |
title_sort |
evaluating the demographic buffering hypothesis with vital rates estimated for weddell seals from 30 years of mark–recapture data |
publisher |
Wiley |
publishDate |
2011 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2656.2011.01902.x https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1365-2656.2011.01902.x https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1365-2656.2011.01902.x |
geographic |
Weddell |
geographic_facet |
Weddell |
genre |
Weddell Seals |
genre_facet |
Weddell Seals |
op_source |
Journal of Animal Ecology volume 81, issue 1, page 162-173 ISSN 0021-8790 1365-2656 |
op_rights |
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#vor |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2656.2011.01902.x |
container_title |
Journal of Animal Ecology |
container_volume |
81 |
container_issue |
1 |
container_start_page |
162 |
op_container_end_page |
173 |
_version_ |
1800740061786931200 |