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Jensen’s Inequality and the Impact of Short-Term Environmental Variability on Long-Term Population Growth Rates

It is well established in theory that short-term environmental fluctuations could affect the long-term growth rates of wildlife populations, but this theory has rarely been tested and there remains little empirical evidence that the effect is actually important in practice. Here we develop models to...

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Autores principales: Pickett, Evan J., Thomson, David L., Li, Teng A., Xing, Shuang
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4564168/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26352857
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0136072
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author Pickett, Evan J.
Thomson, David L.
Li, Teng A.
Xing, Shuang
author_facet Pickett, Evan J.
Thomson, David L.
Li, Teng A.
Xing, Shuang
author_sort Pickett, Evan J.
collection PubMed
description It is well established in theory that short-term environmental fluctuations could affect the long-term growth rates of wildlife populations, but this theory has rarely been tested and there remains little empirical evidence that the effect is actually important in practice. Here we develop models to quantify the effects of daily, seasonal, and yearly temperature fluctuations on the average population growth rates, and we apply them to long-term data on the endangered Black-faced Spoonbill (Platalea minor); an endothermic species whose population growth rates follow a concave relationship with temperature. We demonstrate for the first time that the current levels of temperature variability, particularly seasonal variability, are already large enough to substantially reduce long-term population growth rates. As the climate changes, our results highlight the importance of considering the ecological effects of climate variability and not just average conditions.
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spelling pubmed-45641682015-09-17 Jensen’s Inequality and the Impact of Short-Term Environmental Variability on Long-Term Population Growth Rates Pickett, Evan J. Thomson, David L. Li, Teng A. Xing, Shuang PLoS One Research Article It is well established in theory that short-term environmental fluctuations could affect the long-term growth rates of wildlife populations, but this theory has rarely been tested and there remains little empirical evidence that the effect is actually important in practice. Here we develop models to quantify the effects of daily, seasonal, and yearly temperature fluctuations on the average population growth rates, and we apply them to long-term data on the endangered Black-faced Spoonbill (Platalea minor); an endothermic species whose population growth rates follow a concave relationship with temperature. We demonstrate for the first time that the current levels of temperature variability, particularly seasonal variability, are already large enough to substantially reduce long-term population growth rates. As the climate changes, our results highlight the importance of considering the ecological effects of climate variability and not just average conditions. Public Library of Science 2015-09-09 /pmc/articles/PMC4564168/ /pubmed/26352857 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0136072 Text en © 2015 Pickett et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Pickett, Evan J.
Thomson, David L.
Li, Teng A.
Xing, Shuang
Jensen’s Inequality and the Impact of Short-Term Environmental Variability on Long-Term Population Growth Rates
title Jensen’s Inequality and the Impact of Short-Term Environmental Variability on Long-Term Population Growth Rates
title_full Jensen’s Inequality and the Impact of Short-Term Environmental Variability on Long-Term Population Growth Rates
title_fullStr Jensen’s Inequality and the Impact of Short-Term Environmental Variability on Long-Term Population Growth Rates
title_full_unstemmed Jensen’s Inequality and the Impact of Short-Term Environmental Variability on Long-Term Population Growth Rates
title_short Jensen’s Inequality and the Impact of Short-Term Environmental Variability on Long-Term Population Growth Rates
title_sort jensen’s inequality and the impact of short-term environmental variability on long-term population growth rates
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4564168/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26352857
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0136072
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