Climate and spatio-temporal variation in the population dynamics of a long-distance migrant, the white stork.

• Main Authors: Saether, Bernt-Erik, Grotan, Vidar, Tryjanowski, Piotr, Barbraud, Christophe, Engen, Steinar, Fulin, Miroslav
• Other Authors: Department of Biology Trondheim (IBI NTNU), Norwegian University of Science and Technology Trondheim (NTNU), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)-Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Department of Behavioural Ecology Poznan, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (UAM), Centre d'études biologiques de Chizé (CEBC), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Department of Mathematical Sciences (Norwegian University of Science and Technology), East-Slovakian Museum Kosice
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2006
• Subjects: climate effects on population dynamics; density dependence; environmental stochasticity; population synchrony; white stork; envir; demo; Sutherland; North Atlantic; North Atlantic oscillation
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2656.2005.001023.x; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00211296

International audience 1. A central question in ecology is to separate the relative contribution of density dependence and stochastic influences to annual fluctuations in population size. Here we estimate the deterministic and stochastic components of the dynamics of different European populations of white stork Ciconia ciconia . We then examined whether annual changes in population size was related to the climate during the breeding period (the ‘tap hypothesis' sensu Sæther, Sutherland & Engen (2004, Advances in Ecological Research , 35 , 185–209) or during the nonbreeding period, especially in the winter areas in Africa (the ‘tube hypothesis'). 2. A general characteristic of the population dynamics of this long-distance migrant is small environmental stochasticity and strong density regulation around the carrying capacity with short return times to equilibrium. 3. Annual changes in the size of the eastern European populations were correlated by rainfall in the wintering areas in Africa as well as local weather in the breeding areas just before arrival and in the later part of the breeding season and regional climate variation (North Atlantic Oscillation). This indicates that weather influences the population fluctuations of white storks through losses of sexually mature individuals as well as through an effect on the number of individuals that manages to establish themselves in the breeding population. Thus, both the tap and tube hypothesis explains climate influences on white stork population dynamics. 4. The spatial scale of environmental noise after accounting for the local dynamics was 67 km, suggesting that the strong density dependence reduces the synchronizing effects of climate variation on the population dynamics of white stork. 5. Several climate variables reduced the synchrony of the residual variation in population size after accounting for density dependence and demographic stochasticity, indicating that these climate variables had a synchronizing effect on the population fluctuations. In ...