The relative importance of direct and indirect effects of hunting mortality on the population dynamics of brown bears
Journal article, Peer reviewed
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http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2396328Utgivelsesdato
2014Metadata
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Originalversjon
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences 2014, 282(1798) 10.1098/rspb.2014.1840Sammendrag
There is increasing evidence of indirect effects of hunting on populations.
In species with sexually selected infanticide (SSI), hunting may decrease
juvenile survival by increasing male turnover.We aimed to evaluate the relative
importance of direct and indirect effects of hunting via SSI on the population
dynamics of the Scandinavian brown bear (Ursus arctos). We performed prospective
and retrospective demographic perturbation analyses for periods
with low and high hunting pressures. All demographic rates, except yearling
survival, were lower under high hunting pressure, which led to a decline in
population growth under high hunting pressure (l ¼ 0.975; 95% CI ¼ 0.914–
1.011). Hunting had negative indirect effects on the population through an
increase in SSI, which lowered cub survival and possibly also fecundity rates.
Our study suggests that SSI could explain 13.6% of the variation in population
growth.Hunting also affected the relative importance of survival and fecundity
of adult females for population growth, with fecundity being more important
under low hunting pressure and survival more important under high hunting
pressure. Our study sheds light on the importance of direct and indirect effects
of hunting on population dynamics, and supports the contention that hunting
can have indirect negative effects on populations through SSI.
population dynamics, harvesting, brown bear,
sexually selected infanticide, behaviour,
carnivore, ecology, behaviour