Quantifying the contribution of habitat dynamics relative to intrinsic population processes in regulating species persistence remains an ongoing challenge in ecological and applied conservation. Understanding these drivers and their relationship is essential for managing habitat‐dependent species, especially those that specialize in transitional habitats. Limitations in the ability of natural disturbance to mediate transitional habitat dynamics have resulted in a decline in early‐ and mid‐successional vegetation structure and prompted the need for aggressive habitat management to replace natural perturbations and increase habitat structural complexity. We describe a collaborative effort with a group of independent land managers to design an adaptive management program for restoring an imperiled ecosystem and recovering declining populations of an endemic habitat specialist. We developed a set of integrated, hierarchical models to estimate management‐mediated transition rates among vegetation classes in two dominant scrub communities and the species response (local colonization and extinction probabilities) as a function of habitat state. Models were fit using a long‐term data set of habitat and occupancy observations from 361 Florida scrub‐jay territories across two Florida counties. Occupancy model results correspond closely to previous approaches of estimating differential survival and reproductive success associated with habitat conditions, with highest colonization and lowest extinction rates estimated for those habitat states found to have the highest rates of survival and reproduction. In addition to offering an innovative approach for jointly modeling habitat and species population dynamics, the program we describe will also be of interest from a management perspective by providing guidance for developing collaborative, adaptive management frameworks from the ground up. We engaged land managers via workshops to specify objectives and desired state‐variable conditions, identify management alternatives, and elicit consensus opinions on model parameters. Treating expert opinions as pseudo‐observations to define Dirichlet priors allowed us to make use of existing management knowledge. Formal learning was then accumulated by updating transition probability estimates as management activities were implemented over the study period. We believe this adaptive management framework provides a useful approach for increasing our understanding of complex ecological relationships and hope that it will be adopted by others who have interest in informing management and conservation efforts.

中文翻译：

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集成的层次模型可为过渡生境的管理和生境专家的恢复提供信息

量化栖息地动态相对于固有种群过程在调节物种持久性中的贡献仍然是生态和应用保护中的一项持续挑战。了解这些驱动因素及其关系对于管理依赖栖息地的物种，尤其是那些专门从事过渡性栖息地的物种，至关重要。自然干扰调节过渡生境动态的能力受到限制，导致早期和中期成功的植被结构下降，并促使需要积极的生境管理以取代自然干扰并增加生境结构的复杂性。我们描述了与一群独立的土地管理人员的合作努力，以设计适应性管理计划，以恢复受威胁的生态系统并恢复地方生境专家的数量下降。我们开发了一套集成的分层模型，以估计管理介导的两个优势灌丛群落中各植被类别之间的过渡速率，以及作为生境状态的函数的物种响应（局部定植和灭绝概率）。使用来自佛罗里达州两个县的361个佛罗里达灌丛周遭地区的栖息地和占用情况的长期数据集，对模型进行了拟合。占用模型的结果与先前估算与栖息地条件相关的差异生存和生殖成功的方法非常接近，被发现具有最高生存率和繁殖率的那些栖息地州，其定殖率最高，灭绝率最低。除了提供一种用于共同建模生境和物种种群动态的创新方法之外，我们所描述的程序还将从管理的角度出发，为从根本上开发协作的，适应性的管理框架提供指导，从而引起人们的兴趣。我们通过讲习班与土地管理人员合作，确定目标和所需的状态可变条件，确定管理方案，并就模型参数征求共识。将专家意见作为伪观察来定义Dirichlet先验，使我们可以利用现有的管理知识。然后，随着学习期间实施管理活动，通过更新过渡概率估计值来积累正式学习。我们认为，这种适应性管理框架为增进我们对复杂生态关系的理解提供了一种有用的方法，并希望有兴趣向管理和保护工作提供信息的其他人采用该框架。