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Projecting population trends of endangered amphibian species in the face of uncertainty: A pattern-oriented approach

Author

Listed:
  • Swanack, Todd M.
  • Grant, William E.
  • Forstner, Michael R.J.

Abstract

Amphibian populations have been declining worldwide for the last three decades. Determining the risk of extinction is one of the major goals of amphibian conservation, yet few quantitative models have been developed for amphibian populations. Like most rare or threatened populations, there is a paucity of life history data available for most amphibian populations. Data on the critical juvenile life stage are particularly lacking. Pattern oriented modeling (POM) has been used successfully to estimate life history parameters indirectly when critical data lacking, but has not been applied to amphibian populations. We describe a spatially explicit, individual-based, stochastic simulation model developed to project population dynamics of pond-breeding amphibian populations. We parameterized the model with life history and habitat data collected for the endangered Houston toad (Bufohoustonensis), a species for which there is a high degree of uncertainty for juvenile and adult male survival. During model evaluation, we focused on explicitly reducing this uncertainty, evaluating 16 different versions of the model that represented the range of parametric uncertainty for juvenile and adult male survival. Following POM protocol, we compared simulation results to four population-level patterns observed in the field: population size, adult sex ratio, proportion of toads returning to their natal pond, and mean maximum distance moved. Based on these comparisons, we rejected 11 of the 16 model versions. Results of the remaining versions confirmed that population persistence depends heavily on juvenile survival, and further suggested that probability of juvenile survival is likely between 0.0075 and 0.015 (previous estimates ranged from 0.003 to 0.02), and that annual male survival is near 0.15 (previous estimates ranged up to 0.43).

Suggested Citation

  • Swanack, Todd M. & Grant, William E. & Forstner, Michael R.J., 2009. "Projecting population trends of endangered amphibian species in the face of uncertainty: A pattern-oriented approach," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 220(2), pages 148-159.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:220:y:2009:i:2:p:148-159
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2008.09.006
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    Cited by:

    1. Westervelt, James D. & Sperry, Jinelle H. & Burton, Jennifer L. & Palis, John G., 2013. "Modeling response of frosted flatwoods salamander populations to historic and predicted climate variables," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 268(C), pages 18-24.
    2. Radchuk, Viktoriia & Johst, Karin & Groeneveld, Jürgen & Grimm, Volker & Schtickzelle, Nicolas, 2013. "Behind the scenes of population viability modeling: Predicting butterfly metapopulation dynamics under climate change," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 259(C), pages 62-73.
    3. Clark, Matt & Andrews, Jeffrey & Kolarik, Nicholas & Omar, Mbarouk Mussa & Hillis, Vicken, 2024. "Causal attribution of agricultural expansion in a small island system using approximate Bayesian computation," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    4. Jiang, Weimin & Cornelisen, Chris & Knight, Ben & Gibbs, Mark, 2015. "A pattern-oriented model for assessing effects of weather and freshwater discharge on black coral (Antipathes fiordensis) distribution in a fjord," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 304(C), pages 59-68.
    5. Turley, Marianne C. & Ford, E. David, 2009. "Definition and calculation of uncertainty in ecological process models," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 220(17), pages 1968-1983.

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