RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Quantifying climate change impacts emphasises the importance of managing regional threats in the endangered Yellow-eyed penguin
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 066696
DO 10.1101/066696
A1 Thomas Mattern
A1 Stefan Meyer
A1 Ursula Ellenberg
A1 David M. Houston
A1 John T. Darby
A1 Melanie Young
A1 Yolanda van Heezik
A1 Philip J. Seddon
YR 2017
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/02/08/066696.abstract
AB Climate change is a global issue with effects that are difficult to manage at a regional scale, more often than not comprising only some of multiple stressors that should be addressed in species conservation. Non-climatic factors – especially those of anthropogenic origins – play equally if not more important roles with regard to impacts on species and are often more feasible to address. Here we assess the relative influence of climate change on population trends of the endangered Yellow-eyed penguin (Megadyptes antipodes) over the last 30 years, using a Bayesian model. Sea surface temperature (SST) proved to be the dominating factor influencing survival of both adult birds and fledglings. Increasing SST since the mid-1990s was accompanied by a reduction in survival rates and population decline. The population model showed that 33% of the variation in population numbers could be explained by SST alone, significantly increasing pressure on the penguin population. Consequently, the population becomes less resilient to non-climate related impacts, such as fisheries interactions, habitat degradation and human disturbance. However the extent of the contribution of these factors to declining population trends is extremely difficult to assess principally due to the absence of quantifiable data, creating a bias towards climate variables, and effectively distracting from non-climate factors that can be managed on a regional scale to ensure the viability of the population.