Impacts of predator-mediated interactions along a climatic gradient on the population dynamics of an alpine bird
According to classic theory, species' population dynamics and distributions are less influenced by species interactions under harsh climatic conditions compared to under more benign climatic conditions. In alpine and boreal ecosystems in Fennoscandia, the cyclic dynamics of rodents strongly aff...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:7779518 2023-05-15T16:11:58+02:00 Impacts of predator-mediated interactions along a climatic gradient on the population dynamics of an alpine bird Bowler, Diana E. Kvasnes, Mikkel A. J. Pedersen, Hans C. Sandercock, Brett K. Nilsen, Erlend B. 2020-12-23 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7779518/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33352076 https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.2653 en eng The Royal Society http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7779518/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33352076 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.2653 © 2020 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY Proc Biol Sci Ecology Text 2020 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.2653 2021-01-10T01:35:09Z According to classic theory, species' population dynamics and distributions are less influenced by species interactions under harsh climatic conditions compared to under more benign climatic conditions. In alpine and boreal ecosystems in Fennoscandia, the cyclic dynamics of rodents strongly affect many other species, including ground-nesting birds such as ptarmigan. According to the ‘alternative prey hypothesis’ (APH), the densities of ground-nesting birds and rodents are positively associated due to predator–prey dynamics and prey-switching. However, it remains unclear how the strength of these predator-mediated interactions change along a climatic harshness gradient in comparison with the effects of climatic variation. We built a hierarchical Bayesian model to estimate the sensitivity of ptarmigan populations to interannual variation in climate and rodent occurrence across Norway during 2007–2017. Ptarmigan abundance was positively linked with rodent occurrence, consistent with the APH. Moreover, we found that the link between ptarmigan abundance and rodent dynamics was strongest in colder regions. Our study highlights how species interactions play an important role in population dynamics of species at high latitudes and suggests that they can become even more important in the most climatically harsh regions. Text Fennoscandia PubMed Central (PMC) Norway Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 287 1941 20202653 |
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Open Polar |
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PubMed Central (PMC) |
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ftpubmed |
language |
English |
topic |
Ecology |
spellingShingle |
Ecology Bowler, Diana E. Kvasnes, Mikkel A. J. Pedersen, Hans C. Sandercock, Brett K. Nilsen, Erlend B. Impacts of predator-mediated interactions along a climatic gradient on the population dynamics of an alpine bird |
topic_facet |
Ecology |
description |
According to classic theory, species' population dynamics and distributions are less influenced by species interactions under harsh climatic conditions compared to under more benign climatic conditions. In alpine and boreal ecosystems in Fennoscandia, the cyclic dynamics of rodents strongly affect many other species, including ground-nesting birds such as ptarmigan. According to the ‘alternative prey hypothesis’ (APH), the densities of ground-nesting birds and rodents are positively associated due to predator–prey dynamics and prey-switching. However, it remains unclear how the strength of these predator-mediated interactions change along a climatic harshness gradient in comparison with the effects of climatic variation. We built a hierarchical Bayesian model to estimate the sensitivity of ptarmigan populations to interannual variation in climate and rodent occurrence across Norway during 2007–2017. Ptarmigan abundance was positively linked with rodent occurrence, consistent with the APH. Moreover, we found that the link between ptarmigan abundance and rodent dynamics was strongest in colder regions. Our study highlights how species interactions play an important role in population dynamics of species at high latitudes and suggests that they can become even more important in the most climatically harsh regions. |
format |
Text |
author |
Bowler, Diana E. Kvasnes, Mikkel A. J. Pedersen, Hans C. Sandercock, Brett K. Nilsen, Erlend B. |
author_facet |
Bowler, Diana E. Kvasnes, Mikkel A. J. Pedersen, Hans C. Sandercock, Brett K. Nilsen, Erlend B. |
author_sort |
Bowler, Diana E. |
title |
Impacts of predator-mediated interactions along a climatic gradient on the population dynamics of an alpine bird |
title_short |
Impacts of predator-mediated interactions along a climatic gradient on the population dynamics of an alpine bird |
title_full |
Impacts of predator-mediated interactions along a climatic gradient on the population dynamics of an alpine bird |
title_fullStr |
Impacts of predator-mediated interactions along a climatic gradient on the population dynamics of an alpine bird |
title_full_unstemmed |
Impacts of predator-mediated interactions along a climatic gradient on the population dynamics of an alpine bird |
title_sort |
impacts of predator-mediated interactions along a climatic gradient on the population dynamics of an alpine bird |
publisher |
The Royal Society |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7779518/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33352076 https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.2653 |
geographic |
Norway |
geographic_facet |
Norway |
genre |
Fennoscandia |
genre_facet |
Fennoscandia |
op_source |
Proc Biol Sci |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7779518/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33352076 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.2653 |
op_rights |
© 2020 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.2653 |
container_title |
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
container_volume |
287 |
container_issue |
1941 |
container_start_page |
20202653 |
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1765997177999458304 |