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Use of stochastic patch occupancy models in the California red-legged frog for Bayesian inference regarding past events and future persistence.


ABSTRACT: Assessing causes of population decline is critically important to management of threatened species. Stochastic patch occupancy models (SPOMs) are popular tools for examining spatial and temporal dynamics of populations when presence-absence data in multiple habitat patches are available. We developed a Bayesian Markov chain method that extends existing SPOMs by focusing on past environmental changes that may have altered occupancy patterns prior to the beginning of data collection. Using occupancy data from 3 creeks, we applied the method to assess 2 hypothesized causes of population decline-in situ die-off and residual impact of past source population loss-in the California red-legged frog. Despite having no data for the 20-30 years between the hypothetical event leading to population decline and the first data collected, we were able to discriminate among hypotheses, finding evidence that in situ die-off increased in 2 of the creeks. Although the creeks had comparable numbers of occupied segments, owing to different extinction-colonization dynamics, our model predicted an 8-fold difference in persistence probabilities of their populations to 2030. Adding a source population led to a greater predicted persistence probability than did decreasing the in situ die-off, emphasizing that reversing the deleterious impacts of a disturbance may not be the most efficient management strategy. We expect our method will be useful for studying dynamics and evaluating management strategies of many species.

SUBMITTER: Alcala N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6849877 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Use of stochastic patch occupancy models in the California red-legged frog for Bayesian inference regarding past events and future persistence.

Alcala Nicolas N   Launer Alan E AE   Westphal Michael F MF   Seymour Richard R   Cole Esther M EM   Rosenberg Noah A NA  

Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology 20190415 3


Assessing causes of population decline is critically important to management of threatened species. Stochastic patch occupancy models (SPOMs) are popular tools for examining spatial and temporal dynamics of populations when presence-absence data in multiple habitat patches are available. We developed a Bayesian Markov chain method that extends existing SPOMs by focusing on past environmental changes that may have altered occupancy patterns prior to the beginning of data collection. Using occupan  ...[more]

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