In human populations, it is relatively easy to calculate demographic trends and make projections of the future if data on basic processes such as births and immigration is known.
In human populations, it is relatively easy to calculate demographic trends and make projections of the future if data on basic processes such as births and immigration is known. The data, given by individuals, can be also death and emigration, which subtract. In the wild, on the other hand, understanding the processes that determine wildlife demographic patterns is a highly complex challenge for the scientific community. Although a wide range of methods are now available to estimate births and deaths in wildlife, quantifying emigration and immigration has historically been difficult or impossible in many populations of interest, particularly in the case of threatened species.
A paper published in the journal Biological Conservation warns that missing data on emigration and immigration movements in wildlife can lead to significant biases in species’ demographic projections. As a result, projections about the short-, medium- and long-term future of study populations may be inadequate. This puts their survival at risk due to the implementation of erroneous or ineffective conservation strategies. The authors of the new study are Joan Real, Jaume A. Badia-Boher and Antonio Hernández-Matías, from the Conservation Biology team of the Faculty of Biology of the University of Barcelona and the Institute for Research on Biodiversity (IRBio).
Read more at University of Barcelona
