Abstract
The habitat suitability index, which reflects spatial variability in species occurrence probability, has been shown to exhibit various contrasting relationships with local demographic performances (survival, productivity) in several species. One proposed explanation for these discrepancies is that the link between the habitat suitability index and demography is influenced by density‐dependent, temporally variable processes. Based on the survival rates of more than 3,000 nests monitored over 12 years in the North African Houbara Bustard, we investigated whether the habitat suitability index computed over the species breeding range is related to nest survival throughout the breeding season, accounting for variation in meteorological conditions. We found that the relationship between the habitat suitability index and nest survival progressively changes along the breeding season and that this intra‐annual variation is consistent between years. Our results support the hypothesis that variation in space use occurs intra‐annually and that biotic interactions throughout the breeding season strongly influence the habitat suitability index–demography relationship.
Highlights
The habitat suitability index (HSI) is a probability of species presence inferred from ecological niche modeling, by relating the occurrence of a species at a given location to environmental features (Guisan & Thuiller, 2005)
Using data collected from a longitudinal nest survey in a bird species, the North African Houbara Bustard (Chlamydotis undulata undulata), we explored whether the breeding performance is related to the HSI computed from independent data, which represents a suitability index of presence, over the breeding range of the species and over several years, depending on meteorological conditions, as well as throughout the breeding season
We investigated whether the daily nest survival rate–HSI relationship could temporally vary within the breeding season and/or be driven by meteorological variation among years by developing a set of candidate models including additive effects and the first order interactions HSI × Date, HSI × Prec, and HSI × Temp
Summary
The habitat suitability index (HSI) is a probability of species presence inferred from ecological niche modeling, by relating the occurrence of a species at a given location to environmental features (Guisan & Thuiller, 2005). Monnet et al, 2015 set forward the hypothesis that higher densities in high HSI sites may enhance deleterious ecological processes such as intraspecific competition Based on these elements, we expect a negative relationship between the HSI of the Houbara breeding range and the daily nest survival rate, potentially caused by density-dependent effects that could be magnified in years with low resource availability (e.g., low precipitation) or during the peak of the breeding season (in April) when breeding activity and competition are the highest
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