Logistic-growth models measuring density feedback are sensitive to population declines, but not fluctuating carrying capacity.

ABSTRACT: Analysis of long-term trends in abundance of animal populations provides insights into population dynamics. Population growth rates are the emergent interplay of inter alia fertility, survival, and dispersal. However, the density feedbacks operating on some vital rates ("component feedback") can be decoupled from density feedbacks on population growth rates estimated using abundance time series ("ensemble feedback"). Many of the mechanisms responsible for this decoupling are poorly understood, thereby questioning the validity of using logistic-growth models versus vital rates to infer long-term population trends. To examine which conditions lead to decoupling, we simulated age-structured populations of long-lived vertebrates experiencing component density feedbacks on survival. We t

SUBMITTER: Bradshaw CJA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10131297 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature