Demographic buffering and compensatory recruitment promotes the persistence of disease in a wildlife population.

ABSTRACT: Demographic buffering allows populations to persist by compensating for fluctuations in vital rates, including disease-induced mortality. Using long-term data on a badger (Meles meles Linnaeus, 1758) population naturally infected with Mycobacterium bovis, we built an integrated population model to quantify impacts of disease, density and environmental drivers on survival and recruitment. Badgers exhibit a slow life-history strategy, having high rates of adult survival with low variance, and low but variable rates of recruitment. Recruitment exhibited strong negative density-dependence, but was not influenced by disease, while adult survival was density independent but declined with increasing prevalence of diseased individuals. Given that reproductive success is not depressed by disease pr

SUBMITTER: McDonald JL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4790914 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature