ABSTRACT: Understanding spatiotemporal variation in vital rates and population growth rates is a central aim of population ecology, and is critical to conservation of migratory species where different populations may spend the non-breeding season in sometimes widely separated areas. However, estimating those parameters and identifying the underlying drivers of variation for species migrating to remote areas is challenging. The thick-billed murre Uria lomvia is a colonial seabird with a pan-Arctic distribution. Previous studies have documented large-scale spatial variation in population growth in the species’ Atlantic range, with eastern populations declining and western populations being stable, and suggested that this variation was linked to conditions in the wintering areas. We analyse variation in breeding success and adult survival from colonies throughout the Atlantic range, construct region-specific stochastic population models, and compare model predictions to observed colony growth rates. Breeding success was uniformly high in Greenland and Iceland, lower and more variable in Spitsbergen, Bjørnøya and Hudson Bay, and low at Jan Mayen. Adult survival was average or high in all colonies during the 2010s. Observed colony growth rates were lower than modelled growth rates for most populations. This suggests that pre-breeding survival or breeding propensity must have been lower than assumed in many of these populations. Low pre-breeding survival could be linked to poor feeding conditions in fall and winter, possibly influenced by large-scale oceanographic variation. Our results support the idea that seabird populations not subject to breeder mortality due to anthropogenic causes are regulated mainly through variation in pre-breeding survival.

中文翻译：

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大西洋北极地区厚嘴海鳗的生命率和种群增长的空间变化

摘要：了解生命率和人口增长率的时空变化是人口生态学的中心目标，对于保护迁徙物种至关重要，因为不同的种群可能会在有时相隔很远的地区度过非繁殖季节。然而，估计这些参数并确定迁移到偏远地区的物种变异的潜在驱动因素具有挑战性。厚嘴海鸦Uria lomvia是一种具有泛北极分布的殖民地海鸟。先前的研究记录了该物种大西洋范围内种群增长的大规模空间变化，东部种群下降，西部种群稳定，并表明这种变化与越冬地区的条件有关。我们分析了整个大西洋范围内殖民地的繁殖成功和成虫存活率的变化，构建了特定于区域的随机种群模型，并将模型预测与观察到的种群增长率进行了比较。格陵兰岛和冰岛的繁殖成功率普遍较高，斯匹次卑尔根岛、比约恩岛和哈德逊湾的繁殖成功率较低且变化较大，而扬马延岛的繁殖成功率较低。在 2010 年代，所有殖民地的成虫存活率平均或较高。观察到的菌落增长率低于大多数种群的模型增长率。这表明在许多这些种群中，繁殖前的存活率或繁殖倾向一定比假设的要低。繁殖前存活率低可能与秋季和冬季恶劣的饲养条件有关，可能受到大规模海洋变化的影响。我们的研究结果支持海鸟种群不受人为原因造成的繁殖者死亡率影响的观点，主要通过繁殖前存活率的变化进行调节。