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Linking habitat suitability to demography in a pond-breeding amphibian

INTRODUCTION: Elucidating the relationship between habitat characteristics and population parameters is critical for effective conservation. Habitat suitability index (HSI) models are often used in wildlife management and conservation practice assuming that they predict species occurrence, abundance...

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Autores principales: Unglaub, Bianca, Steinfartz, Sebastian, Drechsler, Axel, Schmidt, Benedikt R
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4430901/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25977702
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12983-015-0103-3
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author Unglaub, Bianca
Steinfartz, Sebastian
Drechsler, Axel
Schmidt, Benedikt R
author_facet Unglaub, Bianca
Steinfartz, Sebastian
Drechsler, Axel
Schmidt, Benedikt R
author_sort Unglaub, Bianca
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: Elucidating the relationship between habitat characteristics and population parameters is critical for effective conservation. Habitat suitability index (HSI) models are often used in wildlife management and conservation practice assuming that they predict species occurrence, abundance and demography. However, the relationship between vital rates such as survival and reproduction and habitat suitability has rarely been evaluated. In this study, we used pond occupancy and mark-recapture data to test whether HSI predicts occupancy, reproduction and survival probabilities. Our model species is the great crested newt (Triturus cristatus), a pond-breeding amphibian protected under the European Habitats Directive. RESULTS: Our results show a positive relationship between the HSI and reproduction probability, whereas pond occupancy and survival probabilities were not related to HSI. Mortality was found to be higher during breeding seasons when newts are in ponds than during terrestrial phases of adult newts. CONCLUSION: Habitat suitability models are increasingly applied to wildlife management and conservation practice. We found that the HSI model predicted reproduction probability, rather than occurrence or survival. If HSI models indicate breeding populations rather than mere species occurrences, they may be used to identify habitats of higher priority for conservation. Future HSI models might be improved through modelling breeding populations vs. non-breeding populations rather than presence/absence data. However, according to our results the most suitable habitat is not necessarily the habitat where demographic performance is best. We recommend that conservation practitioners should use HSI models cautiously because there may be no direct link between habitat suitability, demography and consequently, population viability. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12983-015-0103-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-44309012015-05-15 Linking habitat suitability to demography in a pond-breeding amphibian Unglaub, Bianca Steinfartz, Sebastian Drechsler, Axel Schmidt, Benedikt R Front Zool Research INTRODUCTION: Elucidating the relationship between habitat characteristics and population parameters is critical for effective conservation. Habitat suitability index (HSI) models are often used in wildlife management and conservation practice assuming that they predict species occurrence, abundance and demography. However, the relationship between vital rates such as survival and reproduction and habitat suitability has rarely been evaluated. In this study, we used pond occupancy and mark-recapture data to test whether HSI predicts occupancy, reproduction and survival probabilities. Our model species is the great crested newt (Triturus cristatus), a pond-breeding amphibian protected under the European Habitats Directive. RESULTS: Our results show a positive relationship between the HSI and reproduction probability, whereas pond occupancy and survival probabilities were not related to HSI. Mortality was found to be higher during breeding seasons when newts are in ponds than during terrestrial phases of adult newts. CONCLUSION: Habitat suitability models are increasingly applied to wildlife management and conservation practice. We found that the HSI model predicted reproduction probability, rather than occurrence or survival. If HSI models indicate breeding populations rather than mere species occurrences, they may be used to identify habitats of higher priority for conservation. Future HSI models might be improved through modelling breeding populations vs. non-breeding populations rather than presence/absence data. However, according to our results the most suitable habitat is not necessarily the habitat where demographic performance is best. We recommend that conservation practitioners should use HSI models cautiously because there may be no direct link between habitat suitability, demography and consequently, population viability. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12983-015-0103-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2015-05-14 /pmc/articles/PMC4430901/ /pubmed/25977702 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12983-015-0103-3 Text en © Unglaub et al.; licensee BioMed Central. 2015 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Unglaub, Bianca
Steinfartz, Sebastian
Drechsler, Axel
Schmidt, Benedikt R
Linking habitat suitability to demography in a pond-breeding amphibian
title Linking habitat suitability to demography in a pond-breeding amphibian
title_full Linking habitat suitability to demography in a pond-breeding amphibian
title_fullStr Linking habitat suitability to demography in a pond-breeding amphibian
title_full_unstemmed Linking habitat suitability to demography in a pond-breeding amphibian
title_short Linking habitat suitability to demography in a pond-breeding amphibian
title_sort linking habitat suitability to demography in a pond-breeding amphibian
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4430901/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25977702
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12983-015-0103-3
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