Abstract
Temporal variation in environmental conditions affects population growth directly via its impact on vital rates, and indirectly through induced variation in demographic structure and phenotypic trait distributions. We currently know very little about how these processes jointly mediate population responses to their environment. To address this gap, we develop a general transient life table response experiment (LTRE) which partitions the contributions to population growth arising from variation in (1) survival and reproduction, (2) demographic structure, (3) trait values and (4) climatic drivers. We apply the LTRE to a population of yellow‐bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer) to demonstrate the impact of demographic and trait‐mediated processes. Our analysis provides a new perspective on demographic buffering, which may be a more subtle phenomena than is currently assumed. The new LTRE framework presents opportunities to improve our understanding of how trait variation influences population dynamics and adaptation in stochastic environments.
Highlights
Temporal variation in environmental conditions is a ubiquitous feature of natural systems, with potentially strong effects on vital rates such as survival and reproduction (Saether et al 2000; Coulson et al 2001; Mace et al 2015; Koons et al 2017; McDonald et al 2017; Paniw et al 2018)
We investigated the maximum lag required by comparing the R2 of LMLTREs and GAM-life table response experiment (LTRE) with different maximum lags
The Monte Carlo transient LTRE we adapted, serves both aims, by partitioning population growth rate variation into: (1) components due to the direct effects of environmental variation, and (2) delayed effects arising from transient fluctuations in age, stage or trait structure
Summary
Temporal variation in environmental conditions is a ubiquitous feature of natural systems, with potentially strong effects on vital rates such as survival and reproduction (Saether et al 2000; Coulson et al 2001; Mace et al 2015; Koons et al 2017; McDonald et al 2017; Paniw et al 2018). Three factors determine the net contribution of environmental cÀovariaÁtes to ðktÞ: the magnitude of their (co)variances, Cov ept; eqt , the strength of their effects on the vital rate, api, and the sensitivity of population growth rate to hit, given by si.
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