Assessing local population vulnerability with branching process models: an application to wind energy development
Assessing local population vulnerability with branching process models: an application to wind energy development
复制标题
DOI：
10.1890/es15-00103.1
复制
发表时间：
2015-12
期刊：
影响因子：
2.7
通讯作者：
R. Erickson;Eric Eager;J. Stanton;J. Beston;J. Diffendorfer;W. Thogmartin
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
R. Erickson;Eric Eager;J. Stanton;J. Beston;J. Diffendorfer;W. Thogmartin
量化人类发展对当地人口的影响对于保护生物学和野生动物管理非常重要。然而，这些当地人口往往受到人口随机性，因为他们的人口规模小。传统的建模工作，如人口预测矩阵不考虑这种来源的变化，而基于个人的模型，其中包括人口统计随机性，计算密集，缺乏分析的易处理性。两种方法之间的一个折衷是分支过程模型，因为它们适应人口统计学的随机性，并且易于计算。这些模型在概率论和数学生态学的一些子领域中是已知的，但在保护生物学和应用生态学中并不经常应用。我们应用分支过程模型来定量比较和优先考虑当地易受风能设施发展影响的物种。具体而言，我们研究了物种的脆弱性，使用分支过程模型的四个代表性物种：洞穴蝙蝠（长寿，低生育力的物种），树蝙蝠（短命，中等生育力的物种），草原鸣禽（短命，高生育力的物种），和鹰（长寿，成熟缓慢的物种）。风力涡轮机引起的死亡率已被观察到的所有这些物种类型，提高了保护问题。我们模拟了风电场的不同死亡率，同时计算了局部灭绝概率。寿命较长的物种类型（例如，洞穴蝙蝠和鹰）从低灭绝风险到高灭绝风险的转变比短命物种类型（例如，树蝠和草原鸣禽）。高后代生产的物种类型有一个更大的变异性比低后代生产的物种类型的基线灭绝风险。寿命长的物种类型在偶然死亡率达到临界水平之前可能看起来很稳定。在这个阈值之后，当地种群灭绝的风险可能会迅速增加，而风死亡率的增加幅度很小。保护生物学家和野生动物管理人员在发放许可证和制定风力设施监测协议时可能需要考虑这种死亡率模式。我们还描述了我们的分支过程模型如何在更广泛的物种中推广，以进行更大的评估项目，然后描述我们的方法如何应用于风以外的其他压力源。
Quantifying the impact of anthropogenic development on local populations is important for conservation biology and wildlife management. However, these local populations are often subject to demographic stochasticity because of their small population size. Traditional modeling efforts such as population projection matrices do not consider this source of variation whereas individual-based models, which include demographic stochasticity, are computationally intense and lack analytical tractability. One compromise between approaches is branching process models because they accommodate demographic stochasticity and are easily calculated. These models are known within some sub-fields of probability and mathematical ecology but are not often applied in conservation biology and applied ecology. We applied branching process models to quantitatively compare and prioritize species locally vulnerable to the development of wind energy facilities. Specifically, we examined species vulnerability using branching process models for four representative species: A cave bat (a long-lived, low fecundity species), a tree bat (short-lived, moderate fecundity species), a grassland songbird (a short-lived, high fecundity species), and an eagle (a long-lived, slow maturation species). Wind turbine-induced mortality has been observed for all of these species types, raising conservation concerns. We simulated different mortality rates from wind farms while calculating local extinction probabilities. The longer-lived species types (e.g., cave bats and eagles) had much more pronounced transitions from low extinction risk to high extinction risk than short-lived species types (e.g., tree bats and grassland songbirds). High-offspring-producing species types had a much greater variability in baseline risk of extinction than the lower-offspring-producing species types. Long-lived species types may appear stable until a critical level of incidental mortality occurs. After this threshold, the risk of extirpation for a local population may rapidly increase with only minimal increases in wind mortality. Conservation biologists and wildlife managers may need to consider this mortality pattern when issuing take permits and developing monitoring protocols for wind facilities. We also describe how our branching process models may be generalized across a wider range of species for a larger assessment project and then describe how our methods may be applied to other stressors in addition to wind.