Pathways to global-change effects on biodiversity: new opportunities for dynamically forecasting demography and species interactions

Abstract

In structured populations, persistence under environmental change may be particularly threatened when abiotic factors simultaneously negatively affect survival and reproduction of several life cycle stages, as opposed to a single stage. Such effects can then be exacerbated when species interactions generate reciprocal feedbacks between the demographic rates of the different species. Despite the importance of such demographic feedbacks, forecasts that account for them are limited as individual-based data on interacting species are perceived to be essential for such mechanistic forecasting—but are rarely available. Here, we first review the current shortcomings in assessing demographic feedbacks in population and community dynamics. We then present an overview of advances in statistical tools that provide an opportunity to leverage population-level data on abundances of multiple species to infer stage-specific demography. Lastly, we showcase a state-of-the-art Bayesian method to infer and project stage-specific survival and reproduction for several interacting species in a Mediterranean shrub community. This case study shows that climate change threatens populations most strongly by changing the interaction effects of conspecific and heterospecific neighbours on both juvenile and adult survival. Thus, the repurposing of multi-species abundance data for mechanistic forecasting can substantially improve our understanding of emerging threats on biodiversity.

Predator types, urbanization, and tree cover drive top-down control of herbivorous and carnivorous preys in an urban agroecosystem

“…Interspecific competition is a significant process that shapes the organization of natural communities by creating negative impacts of one species on another (Goldberg and Barton 1992; Paniw et al 2023). These effects can be direct or indirect, mediated by changes in resource availability (Bertness and Callaway 1994; Hooper et al 2005).…”

“…These effects can be direct or indirect, mediated by changes in resource availability (Bertness and Callaway 1994; Hooper et al 2005). This competition affects the traits of individual species, population size, and community composition to an uncertain extent, making it an important biological question that remains undetermined for many settings and ecosystems (Paniw et al 2023). Many researchers believe predatory behavior plays a significant role in competitive relationships (Chase et al 2002).…”

Is resilience a unifying concept for the biological sciences?

“…It is predictive, rather than mechanistic, so perhaps modifications to create a causal model 75 would resolve this, or using recent statistical tools for forecasting dynamics and species interactions. 76 It would be useful, then to determine whether such an approach could be made to fit other biological systems, addressing topics such as the amount of circulating hormone, biometrics of a regrown limb, initial population size, and community composition.…”

Integrating counts from rigorous surveys and participatory science to better understand spatiotemporal variation in population processes

“…population growth and vital rates) beyond simply describing population trends is fundamental to population ecology and critical for developing conservation strategies for wildlife populations under increasing climate and land use change (Benton et al, 2006;Davis, Saunders, et al, 2023;Gamelon et al, 2017;Lewis et al, 2023). In particular, accelerating population declines elevate the value of understanding range-wide, long-term population processes of wildlife species, which is critical for evaluating and predicting their responses to various threats and conservation actions (Paniw et al, 2023;. Traditional approaches that use capture-based data (e.g.…”