Effect of extreme sea surface temperature events on the demography of an age-structured albatross population.

ABSTRACT: Climate changes include concurrent changes in environmental mean, variance and extremes, and it is challenging to understand their respective impact on wild populations, especially when contrasted age-dependent responses to climate occur. We assessed how changes in mean and standard deviation of sea surface temperature (SST), frequency and magnitude of warm SST extreme climatic events (ECE) influenced the stochastic population growth rate log(λs) and age structure of a black-browed albatross population. For changes in SST around historical levels observed since 1982, changes in standard deviation had a larger (threefold) and negative impact on log(λs) compared to changes in mean. By contrast, the mean had a positive impact on log(λs). The historical SST mean was lower than the optimal SST

SUBMITTER: Pardo D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5434094 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature