Abstract
The purpose with the project is to identify under which conditions an expected climate change will most strongly affect vertebrate population dynamics. Based on a newly developed theoretical foundation in stochastic population ecology and data from birds, mammals and marine fishes the project will study this by posing three questions: 1. Can intra-specific variation in the effects of climate on vertebrate population dynamics be predicted from knowledge of basic population dynamical parameters (e.g. specific growth rate, form of density regulation)? 2. What are the life history characteristics of species that are likely to be most strongly influenced by variation in climate? 3. How does climate affect the spatial scale of synchrony in population fluctuations? The project can examine whether the effects or climate are stronger on the population dynamics in highly productive than in poor environments, whether a stronger climate influence are found in species with a large clutch size and high specific growth rate than in low reproductive species and whether the effects of climate on the spatial scaling of the synchrony in population fluctuations are dependent on interspecific differences in migration.
Norway