Environmental change reduces body condition, but not population growth, in a high-arctic herbivore ...
Environmental change influences fitness-related traits and demographic rates, which in herbivores are often linked to resource-driven variation in body condition. Coupled body condition-demographic responses may therefore be important for herbivore population dynamics in fluctuating environments, su...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Dataset |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Dryad
2020
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9p8cz8wdv https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.9p8cz8wdv |
| Summary: | Environmental change influences fitness-related traits and demographic rates, which in herbivores are often linked to resource-driven variation in body condition. Coupled body condition-demographic responses may therefore be important for herbivore population dynamics in fluctuating environments, such as the Arctic. We applied a transient Life-Table Response Experiment (‘transient-LTRE’) to demographic data from Svalbard barnacle geese (Branta leucopsis), to quantify their population-dynamic responses to changes in body mass. We partitioned contributions from direct and delayed demographic and body condition-mediated processes to variation in population growth. Declines in body condition (1980-2017), which positively affected reproduction and fledgling survival, had negligible consequences for population growth. Instead, population growth rates were largely reproduction-driven, in part through positive responses to rapidly advancing spring phenology. The virtual lack of body condition-mediated effects ... : Data of body mass was recorded during goose catches (during the moulting period at the breeding grounds at Ny-Ålesund Svalbard). Body mass (measured in g) was then entered into data bases along with the individual ID and age class (fledgling = FL or adult = Ad). Included in the dataset is the average annual body mass for a cohort , for fledglings (1991-2016) and adults (1980-2016), and the sample size for which the average was calculated. ... |
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