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Hanna Kokko - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • Territorial defense, territory size, and Population Regulation.
    The American naturalist, 2005
    Co-Authors: Andrés López-sepulcre, Hanna Kokko
    Abstract:

    Abstract: The carrying capacity of an environment is determined partly by how individuals compete over the available resources. To territorial animals, space is an important resource, leading to conflict over its use. We build a model where the carrying capacity for an organism in a given environment results from the evolution of territorial defense effort and the consequent space use. The same evolutionary process can yield two completely different modes of Population Regulation. Density dependence arises through expanding and shrinking territories if fecundity is low, breeding success increases gradually with territory size, and/or defense is cheap. By contrast, when fecundity is high, breeding success sharply saturates with territory size, and/or defense is costly, we predict fixed territory sizes and Regulation by floaters. These “surplus” individuals form a buffer against Population fluctuations. Yet floaters can also harm breeder performance, and by comparing Population growth of a territorial popul...

  • competition for breeding sites and site dependent Population Regulation in a highly colonial seabird the common guillemot uria aalge
    Journal of Animal Ecology, 2004
    Co-Authors: Hanna Kokko, M P Harris, Sarah Wanless
    Abstract:

    Summary 1. The hypothesis of site-dependent Population Regulation predicts that birds utilize available nesting sites in a pre-emptive (ideal despotic) manner, leading to density dependence in heterogeneous habitats as poorer sites are used at higher Population densities. At small Population sizes adaptive site choice protects Populations against fluctuations (the buffer effect). 2. Common guillemots Uria aalge (Pontoppidan) breed at high density on sea-cliffs. The Population breeding on the Isle of May, Scotland increased by 60% between 1981 and 2000. A good nest-site is a prerequisite for successful breeding and there is much competition for the best sites. Throughout this period, site use correlated with two measures of site quality, and photographs taken in 1936 show that this pattern has been extremely stable. 3. The data indicate declining quality of sites that remain available as the Population has increased. Site-dependent Regulation was evident in that average breeding success declined over the years, but no declining trend was detected in the best (and most preferred) sites. 4. An individual guillemot generally uses the same nest-site from year to year, but a minority move, usually less than 2 m, between breeding seasons. These movements can be involuntary or voluntary. Involuntarily moving birds that had occupied very good sites before moving often spent several years as non-breeders (floaters) close to their previous site before breeding again, and then occupied poorer sites. Voluntarily moving birds significantly improved their site quality by moving. 5. Birds responded both to the physical site characteristics and to their own experience (breeding failure) when abandoning a site. Their behaviour thus combined aspects of the ‘win-stay, lose-switch’ strategy with direct assessment of site quality. Our data set is inconclusive with respect to the public information hypothesis, i.e. whether birds use conspecific cues of breeding success when settling in a new site.

Richard Mcelreath - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

Mark A. Beaumont - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

Dominik Deffner - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

Heikki Henttonen - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • Multiannual Vole Cycles and Population Regulation during Long Winters: An Analysis of Seasonal Density Dependence.
    The American naturalist, 1999
    Co-Authors: Thomas F. Hansen, Nils Chr. Stenseth, Heikki Henttonen
    Abstract:

    abstract: The small‐rodent community in northern Fennoscandia shows regular multiannual fluctuations in abundance. We analyze time series of spring and fall abundances covering 44 yr from the vole community at Kilpisjarvi, northern Finnish Lapland, which is dominated by the gray‐sided vole (Clethrionomys rufocanus). Treating spring and fall abundances as variables in a bivariate time‐series model, we study seasonal aspects of Population Regulation and thereby utilize more of the available data than in most previous analyses of rodent fluctuations. The analysis demonstrates substantial density dependence of Population growth during the winter. This includes a strong direct effect of previous fall density and a strong 2‐yr delayed effect of spring density. Population growth during the summer shows evidence of delayed density dependence but is generally weaker than that during the winter season. Winter Regulation appears to be a crucial element in the production of multiannual cycles in this community, and w...