Impacts of Solar Energy Development On Breeding Birds in Desert Grasslands In South Central New Mexico.

Solar energy is growing at unprecedented rates, with the most development projected to occur in areas with high concentrations of threatened and endangered species, yet its effects on wildlife remain largely unexplored. In 2014 and 2015 we examined the influence of a solar facility on avian community occupancy in the Nutt grasslands of south-central New Mexico. We examined the effect of distance to solar facility as well as other habitat covariates, including vegetation structure and orthopteran abundance, on community occupancy and occupancy trends for individual species.

Demographic rates reveal the benefits of protected areas in a long-lived migratory bird.

Recent studies have suggested that protected areas often fail to conserve target species. However, the efficacy of terrestrial protected areas is difficult to measure, especially for highly vagile species like migratory birds that may move between protected and unprotected areas throughout their lives. Here, we use a 30-y dataset of detailed demographic data from a migratory waterbird, the Whooper swan (), to assess the value of nature reserves (NRs).

Urbanization's influence on the distribution of mange in a carnivore revealed with multistate occupancy models.

Increasing urbanization and use of urban areas by synanthropic wildlife has increased human and domestic animal exposure to zoonotic diseases and exacerbated epizootics within wildlife populations. Consequently, there is a need to improve wildlife disease surveillance programs to rapidly detect outbreaks and refine inferences regarding spatiotemporal disease dynamics. Multistate occupancy models can address potential shortcomings in surveillance programs by accounting for imperfect detection and the misclassification of disease states.

Sustainability management of short-lived freshwater fish in human-altered ecosystems should focus on adult survival.

Fish populations globally are susceptible to endangerment through exploitation and habitat loss. We present theoretical simulations to explore how reduced adult survival (age truncation) might affect short-lived freshwater fish species in human-altered contemporary environments. Our simulations evaluate two hypothetical "average fish" and five example fish species of age 1 or age 2 maturity.

Integrated population modeling reveals the impact of climate on the survival of juvenile emperor penguins.

Early-life demographic traits are poorly known, impeding our understanding of population processes and sensitivity to climate change. Survival of immature individuals is a critical component of population dynamics and recruitment in particular. However, obtaining reliable estimates of juvenile survival (i.

Does seasonality drive spatial patterns in demography? Variation in survival in African reed warblers Acrocephalus baeticatus across southern Africa does not reflect global patterns.

Among birds, northern temperate species generally have larger clutches, shorter development periods and lower adult survival than similarly-sized southern and tropical species. Even though this global pattern is well accepted, the driving mechanism is still not fully understood. The main theories are founded on the differing environmental seasonality of these zones (higher seasonality in the North).

Revisiting the effect of capture heterogeneity on survival estimates in capture-mark-recapture studies: does it matter?

Recently developed capture-mark-recapture methods allow us to account for capture heterogeneity among individuals in the form of discrete mixtures and continuous individual random effects. In this article, we used simulations and two case studies to evaluate the effectiveness of continuously distributed individual random effects at removing potential bias due to capture heterogeneity, and to evaluate in what situation the added complexity of these models is justified. Simulations and case studies showed that ignoring individual capture heterogeneity generally led to a small negative bias in survival estimates and that individual random effects effectively removed this bias.

The demographic drivers of local population dynamics in two rare migratory birds.

The exchange of individuals among populations can have strong effects on the dynamics and persistence of a given population. Yet, estimation of immigration rates remains one of the greatest challenges for animal demographers. Little empirical knowledge exists about the effects of immigration on population dynamics.

Patches of bare ground as a staple commodity for declining ground-foraging insectivorous farmland birds.

Conceived to combat widescale biodiversity erosion in farmland, agri-environment schemes have largely failed to deliver their promises despite massive financial support. While several common species have shown to react positively to existing measures, rare species have continued to decline in most European countries. Of particular concern is the status of insectivorous farmland birds that forage on the ground.

An assessment of integrated population models: bias, accuracy, and violation of the assumption of independence.

Understanding population dynamics requires accurate estimates of demographic rates. Integrated population models combine demographic and survey data into a single, comprehensive analysis and provide more coherent estimates of vital rates. Integrated population models rely on the assumption that different data sets are independent, which is frequently violated in practice.