Measurement error and estimates of population extinction risk

• It is common to estimate the extinction probability for a vulnerable population using methods that are based on the mean and variance of the long-term population growth rate. The numerical values of these two parameters are estimated from time series of population censuses. However, the proportion of a population that is registered at each census is typically not constant but will vary among years because of stochastic factors such as weather conditions at the time of sampling. Here, we analyse how such sampling errors influence estimates of extinction risk and find sampling errors to produce two opposite effects. Measurement errors lead to an exaggerated overall variance, but also introduce negative autocorrelations in the time series (which means that estimates of annual growth rates tend to alternate in size). If time series data are treated properly these two effects exactly counter balance. We advocate routinely incorporating a measure of among year correlations in estimating population extinction risk.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Biologi -- Ekologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Biological Sciences -- Ecology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

negative autocorrelation

population extinction risk

time series

AGE-STRUCTURED POPULATIONS

EUROPEAN HARBOR SEALS

ENVIRONMENTAL

STOCHASTICITY

DECLINING POPULATIONS

VARIABLE ENVIRONMENTS

DYNAMICS

GROWTH

RATES

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)