Abstract
An important component of a sustainable forestry is to investigate the future development of populations given different forestry scenarios. Population viability analysis (PVA) aims to investigate the risk of species extinction given different management scenarios. The core of a PVA is a model for simulating population dynamics. The development of such models usually takes many years, especially for species that have slow dynamics, and that live in dynamic (forest) landscapes. The main goal of this project is to test a short-cut method to fit simulation models for metapopulation dynamics. The simulation models are meant for PVA of metapopulations that have slow dynamics. The method will not require access to data from repeated surveys, which is normally required for fitting models for species that have slow dynamics. We have earlier shown that it should be enough to use data from a single survey to develop a metapopulation model for a species with slow dynamics. However, data on the fire history of the landscape is required. Within the project, the fire history of the landscape is planned to be mapped. I also plan to collect data for evaluating whether the model developed is applicable in a managed forest landscape. If the short-cut method is successful, it will be a cost-efficient and quick way to develop metapopulation models for the great number of species with slow dynamics in our forest landscapes.
Sweden