Dear MARMAM colleagues,
We are pleased to announce that the following paper is now available in Early
view:
Enrico Pirotta, Marc Mangel, Daniel P. Costa, Jeremy Goldbogen, John Harwood,
Vincent Hin, Ladd M. Irvine, Bruce R. Mate, Elizabeth A. McHuron, Daniel M.
Palacios, Lisa K. Schwarz, Leslie New. 2019. Anthropogenic disturbance in a
changing environment: modelling lifetime reproductive success to predict the
consequences of multiple stressors on a migratory population. Oikos.
Abstract:
Animals make behavioural and reproductive decisions that maximise their
lifetime reproductive success, and thus their fitness, in light of periodic and
stochastic variability of the environment. Modelling the variation of an
individual's energy levels formalises this tradeoff and helps to quantify the
population‐level consequences of stressors (e.g. disturbance from human
activities and environmental change) that can affect behaviour or physiology.
In this study, we develop a dynamic state variable model for the spatially
explicit behaviour, physiology and reproduction of a female, long‐lived,
migratory marine vertebrate. The model can be used to investigate the
spatio‐temporal patterns of behaviour and reproduction that allow an individual
to maximise its overall reproductive output. We parametrised the model for
eastern North Pacific blue whales Balaenoptera musculus, and used it to predict
the effects of changing environmental conditions and increasing human
disturbance on the population's vital rates. In baseline conditions, the model
output had high fidelity to observed energy dynamics, movement patterns and
reproductive strategies. Simulated scenarios suggested that environmental
changes could have severe consequences on the population's vital rates, but
that individuals could tolerate high levels of anthropogenic disturbance.
However, this ability depended on where, when and how often disturbance
occurred. In scenarios with both environmental change and anthropogenic
disturbance, synergistic interactions caused stronger effects than in
isolation. In general, larger body size offered a buffer against stochasticity
and disturbance, and, consequently, we predicted juveniles to be more
susceptible to disturbance. We also predicted that females prioritise their own
survival at the expense of the current reproductive attempt, presumably the
result of their long lifespan. Our approach provides a general framework to
make predictions of the cumulative and synergistic effects of human disturbance
and climate change on migratory populations, which can inform effective
management and conservation efforts.
A PDF copy of the paper can be downloaded from:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/oik.06146
Please do not hesitate to contact me for any question regarding our work.
Best Regards,
Enrico Pirotta
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