Density dependence can obscure nonlethal effects of disturbance on life history of medium-sized cetaceans.

ABSTRACT: Nonlethal disturbance of animals can cause behavioral and physiological changes that affect individual health status and vital rates, with potential consequences at the population level. Predicting these population effects remains a major challenge in ecology and conservation. Monitoring fitness-related traits may improve detection of upcoming population changes, but the extent to which individual traits are reliable indicators of disturbance exposure is not well understood, especially for populations regulated by density dependence. Here we study how density dependence affects a population's response to disturbance and modifies the disturbance effects on individual health and vital rates. We extend an energy budget model for a medium-sized cetacean (the long-finned pilot whale Globicephal

SUBMITTER: Hin V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8174747 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature