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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...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2015
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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. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4564168 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
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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