Demography and metapopulation dynamics of an urban Cooper's Hawk subpopulation

Abstract

ABSTRACT Cooper's Hawks (Accipiter cooperii) have been extending their breeding range into urban areas, prompting questions about the relative importance of cities to the demography and conservation of these raptors. A key unanswered question is how urban subpopulations interact with their precedent exurban subpopulations. Two general models have been proposed to describe relationships among subpopulations in a metapopulation: (1) source–sink, where immigrants from sources sustain sinks; and (2) balanced dispersal, where dispersal is proportionally equal among subpopulations. I evaluated whether either of these models predict metapopulation dynamics of urban and exurban Cooper's Hawks in central New Mexico using demographic data in a Bayesian integrated population model. All urban female Cooper's Hawks began breeding in their first year; 69% settled at nests in the urban subpopulation and 31% emigrated and settled in an exurban subpopulation. The high rate of female emigration was likely because of a shor...