The utility of transient sensitivity for wildlife management and conservation: Bison as a case study

Buhnerkempe, Michael; Burch, Nathanial; Hamilton, Sarah J.; Byrne, Kerry M.; Childers, Eddie; Holfelder, Kirstin A.; McManus, Lindsay; Pyne, Matthew I.; Schroeder, Greg; Doherty, Paul F.

doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2011.03.012

Cited by 14 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…The recognition that inference about population dynamics depends on the time‐scale of observation has gained traction in conservation biology and ecology more generally (Hastings ; Buhnerkempe et al . ) but is not yet widely appreciated in disease ecology. We postulate that this is largely due to a historical focus on the basic reproduction number, R 0 (the expected number of secondary infections caused by a single infectious individual in a wholly susceptible population), which is typically estimated during initial invasion of a population or at a long‐term steady state.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting signals of chronic shedding to explain pathogen persistence:Leptospira interrogansinCalifornia sea lions

Buhnerkempe

Prager

Strelioff

et al. 2017

Journal of Animal Ecology

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Identifying mechanisms driving pathogen persistence is a vital component of wildlife disease ecology and control. Asymptomatic, chronically infected individuals are an oft-cited potential reservoir of infection, but demonstrations of the importance of chronic shedding to pathogen persistence at the population-level remain scarce. Studying chronic shedding using commonly collected disease data is hampered by numerous challenges, including short-term surveillance that focuses on single epidemics and acutely ill individuals, the subtle dynamical influence of chronic shedding relative to more obvious epidemic drivers, and poor ability to differentiate between the effects of population prevalence of chronic shedding vs. intensity and duration of chronic shedding in individuals. We use chronic shedding of Leptospira interrogans serovar Pomona in California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) as a case study to illustrate how these challenges can be addressed. Using leptospirosis-induced strands as a measure of disease incidence, we fit models with and without chronic shedding, and with different seasonal drivers, to determine the time-scale over which chronic shedding is detectable and the interactions between chronic shedding and seasonal drivers needed to explain persistence and outbreak patterns. Chronic shedding can enable persistence of L. interrogans within the sea lion population. However, the importance of chronic shedding was only apparent when surveillance data included at least two outbreaks and the intervening inter-epidemic trough during which fadeout of transmission was most likely. Seasonal transmission, as opposed to seasonal recruitment of susceptibles, was the dominant driver of seasonality in this system, and both seasonal factors had limited impact on long-term pathogen persistence. We show that the temporal extent of surveillance data can have a dramatic impact on inferences about population processes, where the failure to identify both short- and long-term ecological drivers can have cascading impacts on understanding higher order ecological phenomena, such as pathogen persistence.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting signals of chronic shedding to explain pathogen persistence:Leptospira interrogansinCalifornia sea lions

Buhnerkempe

Prager

Strelioff

et al. 2017

Journal of Animal Ecology

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“…Using a unique combination of experimental exclosure and space-use studies, however, our colleagues are finding that competition between bison and cattle for forage on the HM is minimal under recent environmental conditions (Ranglack et al 2015; H. Ranglack and J. T. du Toit, unpublished manuscript); perhaps because cattle must remain near limited sources of water, while bison can range more freely (van Vuren 2001). Complex interactions between climate, phenology, and primary productivity, as well as transient fluctuations in age and sex structure induced by extractions (Buhnerkempe et al 2011) might help explain greater amounts of variability in bison population dynamics in the HM.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disentangling the effects of climate, density dependence, and harvest on an iconic large herbivore's population dynamics

Koons

Colchero

Hersey

et al. 2015

Ecological Applications

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Understanding the relative effects of climate, harvest, and density dependence on population dynamics is critical for guiding sound population management, especially for ungulates in arid and semiarid environments experiencing climate change. To address these issues for bison in southern Utah, USA, we applied a Bayesian state-space model to a 72-yr time series of abundance counts. While accounting for known harvest (as well as live removal) from the population, we found that the bison population in southern Utah exhibited a strong potential to grow from low density (β0 = 0.26; Bayesian credible interval based on 95% of the highest posterior density [BCI] = 0.19-0.33), and weak but statistically significant density dependence (β1 = -0.02, BCI = -0.04 to -0.004). Early spring temperatures also had strong positive effects on population growth (Pfat1 = 0.09, BCI = 0.04-0.14), much more so than precipitation and other temperature-related variables (model weight > three times more than that for other climate variables). Although we hypothesized that harvest is the primary driving force of bison population dynamics in southern Utah, our elasticity analysis indicated that changes in early spring temperature could have a greater relative effect on equilibrium abundance than either harvest or. the strength of density dependence. Our findings highlight the utility of incorporating elasticity analyses into state-space population models, and the need to include climatic processes in wildlife management policies and planning.

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“…Managers should remain cognizant of the large influence that culling and changes in survival can have on bison population dynamics (Buhnerkempe et al 2011;Fuller et al 2007b), but the strong response of bison recruitment to changes in population density and precipitation might contribute more to population growth on an annual basis than subtle changes in natural mortality of adults (Gaillard and Yoccoz 2003). Changes in precipitation regimes could thus have strong effects on the management of bison populations in arid and semiarid environments (Holmgren et al 2006), especially in areas like the HM where cattle and bison share forage resources (van Vuren and Bray 1983).…”

Section: Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate and density-dependent drivers of recruitment in plains bison

et al. 2012

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The utility of transient sensitivity for wildlife management and conservation: Bison as a case study

Cited by 14 publications

References 31 publications

Detecting signals of chronic shedding to explain pathogen persistence:Leptospira interrogansinCalifornia sea lions

Detecting signals of chronic shedding to explain pathogen persistence:Leptospira interrogansinCalifornia sea lions

Disentangling the effects of climate, density dependence, and harvest on an iconic large herbivore's population dynamics

Climate and density-dependent drivers of recruitment in plains bison

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