Abstract
Anthropogenic impact on the environment and wildlife are multifaceted and far-reaching. On a smaller scale, controlling for predators has been increasing the yield from local natural prey resources. Globally, human-induced global warming is expected to impose severe negative effects on ecosystems, an effect that is expected to be even more pronounced in the scarcely populated northern latitudes. The clearest indication of a changing Arctic climate is an increase in both air and ocean temperatures leading to reduced sea ice distribution. Population viability is for long-lived species dependent on adult survival and recruitment. Predation is the main mortality cause in many bird populations, and egg predation is considered the main cause of reproductive failure in many birds. To assess the effect of predation and climate, we compared population time series from a natural experiment where a trapper/down collector has been licensed to actively protect breeding common eiders Somateria mollissima (a large seaduck) by shooting/chasing egg predators, with time series from another eider colony located within a nature reserve with no manipulation of egg predators. We found that actively limiting predator activity led to an increase in the population growth rate and carrying capacity with a factor of 3–4 compared to that found in the control population. We also found that population numbers were higher in years with reduced concentration of spring sea ice. We conclude that there was a large positive impact of human limitation of egg predators, and that this lead to higher population growth rate and a large increase in size of the breeding colony. We also report a positive effect of warming climate in the high arctic as reduced sea-ice concentrations was associated with higher numbers of breeding birds.
Highlights
Throughout history humans have been shaping their environment, and anthropogenic impact on the environment and wildlife has been accelerating in line with increasing industrialization and human global population growth
Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd
The results from the Ricker models revealed that the estimated carrying capacity (K) was 2240 nests kmÀ2 for the control population and 7550 (SE = 710) nests kmÀ2 for the predator removal population, whereas the control population experienced a higher intrinsic growth rate (r) compared to the predator removal population (Table 1)
Summary
Throughout history humans have been shaping their environment, and anthropogenic impact on the environment and wildlife has been accelerating in line with increasing industrialization and human global population growth. Humans have affected wildlife by, for example, hunting and in some areas humans have increased their hunting yield by protecting the preferred prey from other predators, an activity that has persisted to present times (e.g., Campbell 1998). In more recent times and on a more global scale, human-induced global warming is moving consequences of human activity from local impact associated with densely populated areas, to even the remotest corners of the world; climate change is worldwide and it is even more pronounced in the scarcely populated northern latitudes (e.g., Serreze et al 2000; Tebaldi et al 2006; Benestad 2007). Egg predation is the main cause of reproductive failure in many birds (O’Connor 1991; Martin 1993).
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