Fall Semester 2023

Seasonality effects on wildlife populations across different data resolutions
Dilşad Dağtekin

Seasonality effects on wildlife populations © Dilşad Dağtekin

We all know the environment that species live in is affecting their demographic strategies and population responses. We see these effects through resources, disturbances, and inter- and intra-species interactions. Since most natural environments are seasonal, all these things can vary with seasonal cycles, and in turn change the population dynamics. Seasonality effects have been recognized for a long time in the population ecology field, yet not many studies take this into account because they collect data at annual steps which makes environmental parameters look constant within a year. However, not taking seasonality effects into account can cause biased estimation of population parameters. In addition, data collection at different resolutions, such as presence/absence (low resolution) or individual-based data (high resolution), can help researchers answer more detailed questions. With these in mind, in my PhD thesis I am checking seasonality effects on wildlife populations by using data from different species and different resolutions coming from two different systems. These are camera-trap data (presence/absence, low resolution) of 8 large-mammal species from north-western forests of Turkey and live-trapping data (individual-based, high resolution) of gray mouse lemurs (Microcebus murinus) from the Kirindy Forest in Madagascar. I am checking seasonality effects on a span of ecological questions from habitat-use patterns to survival and reproduction by using different population models within a Bayesian framework. By doing so, I am covering a span of species and systems and show that seasonality can affect them differently. I hope that my thesis will contribute to possible conservation actions and future studies for understanding of fundamental mechanism in population dynamics.

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