Many animal populations are subject to hunting or fishing in the wild. Detailed knowledge of demographic parameters (e.g. survival, reproduction) and temporal dynamics of such populations is crucial for sustainable management. Despite their relevance for management decisions, structure and size of exploited populations are often not known, and data limited. Recently, joint analysis of different types of demographic data, such as population counts, reproductive data and capture–mark–recapture data, within integrated population models (IPMs) has gained much popularity as it may allow estimating population size and structure, as well as key demographic rates, while fully accounting for uncertainty. IPMs built so far for exploited populations have typically been built as age-structured population models. However, the age of harvested individuals is usually difficult and/or costly to assess and therefore often not available. Here, we introduce an IPM structured by body size classes, which allows making efficient use of data commonly available in exploited populations for which accurate information on age is often missing. The model jointly analyzes size-at-harvest data, capture–mark–recapture–recovery data and reproduction data from necropsies, and we illustrate its applicability in a case study involving heavily hunted wild boar. This species has increased in abundance over the last decades despite intense harvest, and the IPM analysis provides insights into the roles of natural mortality, body growth, maturation schedules and reproductive output in compensating for the loss of individuals to hunting. Early maturation and high reproductive output contributed to wild boar population persistence despite a strong hunting pressure. We thus demonstrate the potential of size-class-structured IPMs as tools to investigate the dynamics of exploited populations with limited information on age, and highlight both the applicability of this framework to other species and its potential for follow-up analyses highly relevant to management.

中文翻译：

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有效利用收获数据：用于开发种群的规模级结构综合种群模型

许多动物种群都在野外狩猎或捕鱼。详细了解这些人口的人口参数（例如生存、繁殖）和时间动态对于可持续管理至关重要。尽管它们与管理决策相关，但被剥削种群的结构和规模通常是未知的，而且数据有限。最近，在综合人口模型 (IPM) 中对不同类型的人口统计数据（例如人口计数、生殖数据和捕获-标记-重新捕获数据）进行联合分析已经广受欢迎，因为它可以估计人口规模和结构，以及关键人口比率，同时充分考虑不确定性。迄今为止，为被剥削人口建立的 IPM 通常被构建为年龄结构的人口模型。然而，被收获个体的年龄通常难以评估和/或评估成本高昂，因此通常无法获得。在这里，我们引入了一个由体型等级构成的 IPM，它允许有效地利用在被利用的人群中普遍可用的数据，这些人群的准确年龄信息经常缺失。该模型联合分析了收获时的体型数据、捕获-标记-重新捕获-恢复数据和尸体剖检的繁殖数据，我们在一个涉及大量猎杀的野猪的案例研究中说明了它的适用性。尽管收获量很大，但该物种在过去几十年中数量增加，IPM 分析提供了对自然死亡率、身体生长、成熟时间表和繁殖输出在补偿因狩猎而造成的个体损失方面的作用的见解。尽管存在强大的狩猎压力，但早熟和高繁殖产量仍有助于野猪种群的持久性。因此，我们证明了规模等级结构的 IPM 作为工具的潜力，可以在年龄信息有限的情况下调查被开发种群的动态，并强调该框架对其他物种的适用性及其对与管理高度相关的后续分析的潜力.