Evaluating mortality rates with a novel integrated framework for nonmonogamous species

Area of Science:

• Wildlife ecology
• Conservation biology
• Population modeling

Background:

• Effective wildlife conservation, particularly for large carnivores, necessitates understanding cause-specific mortalities and their population-level impacts.
• Obtaining robust, long-term data for endangered populations is challenging due to diverse sampling strategies.
• Existing Integrated Population Models (IPMs) are female-based, limiting their application to monogamous species.

Purpose of the Study:

• To extend classical IPMs to a two-sex framework for analyzing population dynamics and cause-specific mortality in non-monogamous species.
• To quantify the impact of human-related mortality on a reintroduced brown bear population.

Main Methods:

• Developed a two-sex integrated population model framework.
• Integrated diverse data types from a reintroduced, unhunted brown bear population (Ursus arctos).
• Modeled cause-specific mortality rates and their influence on population dynamics.

Main Results:

• Estimated that human-related causes accounted for 11% of cub and 61% of adult mortality.
• Identified adult survival, driven by anthropogenic mortality, as the primary factor influencing population dynamics.
• Highlighted potential risks to population growth due to increasing human-bear conflicts and associated mortality.

Conclusions:

• The developed two-sex IPM framework effectively integrates diverse data for non-monogamous species conservation.
• Anthropogenic mortality poses a significant threat to the studied brown bear population, despite current positive growth.
• The approach provides a valuable tool for informing conservation strategies for large carnivores and other non-monogamous species facing data limitations.