103 research outputs found
Are unseen effects of early environment negligible? Three examples in great tits (Parus Major)
On bias due to observer distribution in the analysis of data on natal dispersal in birds
Natal dispersal, the displacement from site of birth to site of reproduction, is an important process. It determines the spatial scale of population dynamics as well as the genetic structure of populations. Although some inferences can be made about dispersal from the measurement of genetic parameters, direct data on individuals marked at their site of birth and recorded at their site of breeding are scarce. In principle, such data could be collected on a large scale through bird ringers concentrating on the recapture of breeding birds. However, the analysis of such data has pitfalls. The raw frequency distribution of observed distances is strongly affected by the spatio-temporal distribution of observers. A strategy for reducing these effects of observer distribution on the observed dispersal pattern is proposed and tested by way of a simulation model. Whereas the results presented are preliminary, there are prospects to obtain a description of dispersal which is relatively independent of the limitations on its observation. [KEYWORDS: Great tit; survival]
Keeping up with a warming world; assessing the rate of adaptation to climate change
The pivotal question in the debate on the ecological effects of climate change is whether species will be able to adapt fast enough to keep up with their changing environment. If we establish the maximal rate of adaptation, this will set an upper limit to the rate at which temperatures can increase without loss of biodiversity
The interaction of inbreeding depression and environmental stochasticity in the risk of extinction of small populations
Two stage selection in which the first stage only reduces the environmental variation in body size in the Great Tit
Measuring dispersal as distance-dependent recruitment rates: testing the performance of DDRR on simulated data.
Dispersal is an important process in ecology,
but its measurement is difficult. In particular, natal dispersal—
the net movement between site of birth and site of
first reproduction—is important, since it determines population
structure. Using simulated data, I study the claim
that measuring dispersal in terms of distance-dependent
recruitment rates filters out many problems. Using several
dispersal rules and several spatial distributions of breeding
sites, it is shown that distance-dependent recruitment rate
(DDRR) estimates are independent of the spatial distribution
of breeding sites and are sensitive to differences in
dispersal rules. These simulations were carried out with
sample sizes of 200 individuals, which is a number
exceeded in many studies. Variation in clumping of
breeding sites (colony sizes) also has little effect on the
resulting DDRR estimates. The effects of individuals
entering and leaving the study area was simulated by
assuming that only half the area was observed. Comparing
the ‘‘observed’’ movements with the total distribution of
distances dispersed shows that the shape of the DDRR is
not affected, although the absolute values are, of course,
lower. Thus, DDRR estimates will allow us to start
studying dispersal behavior independent of the peculiarities
of the study area and independent of the distribution of
observer effort.
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