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Affiliation(s)
- Qing Zhao
- School of Natural Resources University of Missouri Columbia MO USA
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Gauthier G, Péron G, Lebreton JD, Grenier P, van Oudenhove L. Partitioning prediction uncertainty in climate-dependent population models. Proc Biol Sci 2016; 283:rspb.2016.2353. [PMID: 28003456 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2016.2353] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/27/2016] [Accepted: 11/22/2016] [Indexed: 01/19/2023] Open
Abstract
The science of complex systems is increasingly asked to forecast the consequences of climate change. As a result, scientists are now engaged in making predictions about an uncertain future, which entails the efficient communication of this uncertainty. Here we show the benefits of hierarchically decomposing the uncertainty in predicted changes in animal population size into its components due to structural uncertainty in climate scenarios (greenhouse gas emissions and global circulation models), structural uncertainty in the demographic model, climatic stochasticity, environmental stochasticity unexplained by climate-demographic trait relationships, and sampling variance in demographic parameter estimates. We quantify components of uncertainty surrounding the future abundance of a migratory bird, the greater snow goose (Chen caeruslescens atlantica), using a process-based demographic model covering their full annual cycle. Our model predicts a slow population increase but with a large prediction uncertainty. As expected from theoretical variance decomposition rules, the contribution of sampling variance to prediction uncertainty rapidly overcomes that of process variance and dominates. Among the sources of process variance, uncertainty in the climate scenarios contributed less than 3% of the total prediction variance over a 40-year period, much less than environmental stochasticity. Our study exemplifies opportunities to improve the forecasting of complex systems using long-term studies and the challenges inherent to predicting the future of stochastic systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gilles Gauthier
- Département de Biologie and Centre d'Études Nordiques, Université Laval, 1045 avenue de la Médecine, Québec, Quebec, Canada G1V 0A6
| | - Guillaume Péron
- Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoological Park, Front Royal, VA 22630, USA.,UMR CNRS 5558 - LBBE 'Biométrie et Biologie Évolutive' UCB Lyon 1, Bât. Grégor Mendel, 43 bd du 11 novembre 1918, 69622 Villeurbanne Cedex, France
| | - Jean-Dominique Lebreton
- UMR 5175, Centre d'écologie fonctionnelle et évolutive, CNRS, 1919 Route de Mende, 34293 Montpellier Cedex 5, France
| | - Patrick Grenier
- Groupe Scénarios et services climatiques, Ouranos, 550 rue Sherbrooke Ouest, Montréal, Quebec, Canada H3A 1B9
| | - Louise van Oudenhove
- Département de Biologie and Centre d'Études Nordiques, Université Laval, 1045 avenue de la Médecine, Québec, Quebec, Canada G1V 0A6.,UMR 1355, INRA, Institut Sophia Agrobiotech, 400 Route des Chappes, 06903 Sophia Antipolis, France
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Péron G, Altwegg R, Jamie GA, Spottiswoode CN. Coupled range dynamics of brood parasites and their hosts responding to climate and vegetation changes. J Anim Ecol 2016; 85:1191-9. [PMID: 27155344 DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.12546] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/13/2016] [Accepted: 04/14/2016] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
As populations shift their ranges in response to global change, local species assemblages can change, setting the stage for new ecological interactions, community equilibria and evolutionary responses. Here, we focus on the range dynamics of four avian brood parasite species and their hosts in southern Africa, in a context of bush encroachment (increase in woody vegetation density in places previously occupied by savanna-grassland mosaics) favouring some species at the expense of others. We first tested whether hosts and parasites constrained each other's ability to expand or maintain their ranges. Secondly, we investigated whether range shifts represented an opportunity for new host-parasite and parasite-parasite interactions. We used multispecies dynamic occupancy models with interactions, fitted to citizen science data, to estimate the contribution of interspecific interactions to range shifts and to quantify the change in species co-occurrence probability over a 25-year period. Parasites were able to track their hosts' range shifts. We detected no deleterious effect of the parasites' presence on either the local population viability of host species or the hosts' ability to colonize newly suitable areas. In the recently diversified indigobird radiation (Vidua spp.), following bush encroachment, the new assemblages presented more potential opportunities for speciation via host switch, but also more potential for hybridization between extant lineages, also via host switch. Multispecies dynamic occupancy models with interactions brought new insights into the feedbacks between range shifts, biotic interactions and local demography: brood parasitism had little detected impact on extinction or colonization processes, but inversely the latter processes affected biotic interactions via the modification of co-occurrence patterns.
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Affiliation(s)
- Guillaume Péron
- Statistics in Ecology, Environment and Conservation, Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, 7701, Cape Town, South Africa.,Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoological Park, Front Royal, VA, 22630, USA
| | - Res Altwegg
- Statistics in Ecology, Environment and Conservation, Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, 7701, Cape Town, South Africa.,African Climate and Development Initiative, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, 7701, South Africa
| | - Gabriel A Jamie
- Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, UK
| | - Claire N Spottiswoode
- Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, UK.,Department of Science and Technology-National Research Foundation Centre of Excellence, Percy FitzPatrick Institute, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, 7701, South Africa
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