Data from: Decline and recovery of a large carnivore: environmental change and long-term trends in an endangered brown bear population ...

Understanding what factors drive fluctuations in the abundance of endangered species is a difficult ecological problem but a major requirement to attain effective management and conservation success. The ecological traits of large mammals make this task even more complicated, calling for integrative...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Martínez Cano, Isabel, González Taboada, Fernando, Naves, Javier, Fernández-Gil, Alberto, Wiegand, Thorsten
Format: Dataset
Language:English
Published: Dryad 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.q4222
https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.q4222
Description
Summary:Understanding what factors drive fluctuations in the abundance of endangered species is a difficult ecological problem but a major requirement to attain effective management and conservation success. The ecological traits of large mammals make this task even more complicated, calling for integrative approaches. We develop a framework combining individual-based modelling and statistical inference to assess alternative hypotheses on brown bear dynamics in the Cantabrian range (Iberian Peninsula). Models including the effect of environmental factors on mortality rates were able to reproduce three decades of variation in the number of females with cubs of the year (Fcoy), including the decline that put the population close to extinction in the mid-nineties, and the following increase in brown bear numbers. This external effect prevailed over density-dependent mechanisms (sexually selected infanticide and female reproductive suppression), with a major impact of climate driven changes in resource availability and ... : AppendixE ...