Abstract:As a landscape becomes increasingly fragmented through habitat loss, the individual patches become smaller and more isolated and thus less likely to sustain a local population. Metapopulation theory is appropriate for analyzing fragmented landscapes because it combines empirical landscape features with speciesspecific information to produce direct information on population extinction risks. This approach contrasts with descriptions of habitat fragments, which provide only indirect information on risk. Combinin… Show more
“…This analytic approach provides an elegant tool to evaluate species persistence in fragmented, heterogeneous landscapes ( 24 ). The concept of metapopulation capacity has thus been widely adopted in empirical studies and conservation biology ( 25 – 27 ), and it has motivated new theoretical developments [e.g., predicting how patch network properties and dispersal regimes affect metapopulation capacity and thus species persistence ( 28 – 30 )].…”
Significance
Understanding the persistence of populations in fragmented landscapes is critical for predicting the consequences of habitat destruction, yet analytical tools are largely lacking. Metapopulation capacity provides one such tool, because it summarizes the influences of habitat area and distribution on population persistence in a single metric. However, surprisingly few efforts have extended this theory to multispecies communities. Our analyses demonstrate the power of metapopulation capacity theory in predicting the persistence of prey–predator pairs and food chains in heterogeneous, fragmented landscapes. Such analytic insights serve as a benchmark to predict the consequences of habitat changes. Our findings thus have broad implications for both ecological research and conservation practices.
“…This analytic approach provides an elegant tool to evaluate species persistence in fragmented, heterogeneous landscapes ( 24 ). The concept of metapopulation capacity has thus been widely adopted in empirical studies and conservation biology ( 25 – 27 ), and it has motivated new theoretical developments [e.g., predicting how patch network properties and dispersal regimes affect metapopulation capacity and thus species persistence ( 28 – 30 )].…”
Significance
Understanding the persistence of populations in fragmented landscapes is critical for predicting the consequences of habitat destruction, yet analytical tools are largely lacking. Metapopulation capacity provides one such tool, because it summarizes the influences of habitat area and distribution on population persistence in a single metric. However, surprisingly few efforts have extended this theory to multispecies communities. Our analyses demonstrate the power of metapopulation capacity theory in predicting the persistence of prey–predator pairs and food chains in heterogeneous, fragmented landscapes. Such analytic insights serve as a benchmark to predict the consequences of habitat changes. Our findings thus have broad implications for both ecological research and conservation practices.
“…Other species within the Amazon Basin are restricted to floodplain forests; examples include the wattled curassow, Crax globulosa (Endangered), and the pearly-breasted conebill, Conirostrum margaritae (Vulnerable). Mangrove specialists such as the mangrove hummingbird, Amazilia boucardi (Endangered), may pose a challenge because some landcover datasets do not differentiate mangroves and adjacent moist forests [ 28 , 29 ].…”
Accurate maps of species ranges are essential to inform conservation, but time-consuming to produce and update. Given the pace of change of knowledge about species distributions and shifts in ranges under climate change and land use, a need exists for timely mapping approaches that enable batch processing employing widely available data. We develop a systematic approach of batch-processing range maps and derived Area of Habitat maps for terrestrial bird species with published ranges below 125,000 km2 in Central and South America. (Area of Habitat is the habitat available to a species within its range.) We combine existing range maps with the rapidly expanding crowd-sourced eBird data of presences and absences from frequently surveyed locations, plus readily accessible, high resolution satellite data on forest cover and elevation to map the Area of Habitat available to each species. Users can interrogate the maps produced to see details of the observations that contributed to the ranges. Previous estimates of Areas of Habitat were constrained within the published ranges and thus were, by definition, smaller—typically about 30%. This reflects how little habitat within suitable elevation ranges exists within the published ranges. Our results show that on average, Areas of Habitat are 12% larger than published ranges, reflecting the often-considerable extent that eBird records expand the known distributions of species. Interestingly, there are substantial differences between threatened and non-threatened species. Some 40% of Critically Endangered, 43% of Endangered, and 55% of Vulnerable species have Areas of Habitat larger than their published ranges, compared with 31% for Near Threatened and Least Concern species. The important finding for conservation is that threatened species are generally more widespread than previously estimated.
“…Figure 4Predicting metapopulation persistence in empirical data. We applied our statistical approach to an empirical metapopulation of the endangered mangrove hummingbird Amazilia boucardi [15]. ( a ) The geographical distributions of the patches.…”
Section: Resultsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…In the following, we justify our statistical framework with analytic arguments and validate it with extensive simulations with the state-of-the-art model complexity. As a proof of concept, we applied our result to an empirical metapopulation of the mangrove hummingbird ( Amazilia boucardi ) [15]. Following our statistical analysis, we highlight the implications of our method for conservation.…”
Habitat destruction and fragmentation are principal causes of species loss. While a local population might go extinct, a metapopulation—populations inhabiting habitat patches connected by dispersal—can persist regionally by recolonizing empty patches. To assess metapopulation persistence, two widely adopted indicators in conservation management are metapopulation capacity and patch importance. However, we face a fundamental limitation in that assessing metapopulation persistence requires that we survey or sample all the patches in a landscape: often these surveys are logistically challenging to conduct and repeat, which raises the question whether we can learn enough about the metapopulation persistence from an incomplete survey. Here, we provide a robust statistical approach to infer metapopulation capacity and patch importance by sampling a portion of all patches. We provided analytic arguments on why the metapopulation capacity and patch importance can be well predicted from sub-samples of habitat patches. Full-factorial simulations with more complex models corroborate our analytic predictions. We applied our model to an empirical metapopulation of mangrove hummingbirds (
Amazilia boucardi
). On the basis of our statistical framework, we provide some sampling suggestion for monitoring metapopulation persistence. Our approach allows for rapid and effective inference of metapopulation persistence from incomplete patch surveys.
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