Population dynamics and range expansion in nine-banded armadillos.

ABSTRACT: Understanding why certain species can successfully colonize new areas while others do not is a central question in ecology. The nine-banded armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus) is a conspicuous example of a successful invader, having colonized much of the southern United States in the last 200 years. We used 15 years (1992-2006) of capture-mark-recapture data from a population of armadillos in northern Florida in order to estimate, and examine relationships among, various demographic parameters that may have contributed to this ongoing range expansion. Modeling across a range of values for γ, the probability of juveniles surviving in the population until first capture, we found that population growth rates varied from 0.80 for γ = 0.1, to 1.03 for γ = 1.0. Growth rates approached 1.0 only when

SUBMITTER: Loughry WJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3700932 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature