Population dynamics in a changing world: the consequences of environmental variation for species with complex life histories

dc.contributor.advisorMiller, Tomen_US
dc.creatorSchultz, Emilyen_US
dc.date.accessioned2019-05-16T18:04:38Zen_US
dc.date.available2019-05-16T18:04:38Zen_US
dc.date.created2019-05en_US
dc.date.issued2019-04-18en_US
dc.date.submittedMay 2019en_US
dc.date.updated2019-05-16T18:04:38Zen_US
dc.description.abstractDespite increasing awareness of the importance of environmental variation in ecological systems, there are still many open questions about how variation affects population dynamics. I studied several aspects of environmental variation and the roles it plays in population dynamics, particularly for species with complex life histories. My first chapter addresses spatial variation in the effects of native insect herbivores on the population dynamics of an invasive thistle, Cirsium vulgare. It shows that while the underlying population dynamics of the thistle were predicted to vary substantially across space in the absence of herbivores, native insects were able to drive thistle populations to negative growth rates across the study region. My first chapter treats populations as isolated entities, with no dispersal between different populations. However, there is often dispersal between disjoint populations, creating metapopulations, isolated population patches connected by dispersal. Therefore, my second chapter incorporates multiple populations and dispersal to test for the importance of within-patch heterogeneity for metapopulation persistence, using a whitebark pine metapopulation as a model. I found that for whitebark pine, within-patch heterogeneity had minimal effects on metapopulation, and the metapopulation was predicted to be stable with or without the observed within-patch heterogeneity. My final chapter also used the whitebark pine system to test for shifts in elevation distributions due to climate change. Whitebark pine populations were predicted to be buffered against climate change because they do not fill their climatically-determined fundamental niche, and they can therefore tolerate warmer and drier climates than they experience in their current range. Thus, environmental variation can play an important role in population dynamics, but different sources of variation might be important at different scales of organization.en_US
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen_US
dc.identifier.citationSchultz, Emily. "Population dynamics in a changing world: the consequences of environmental variation for species with complex life histories." (2019) Diss., Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/105348">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/105348</a>.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/105348en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.rightsCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.en_US
dc.subjectPopulation dynamicsen_US
dc.subjectDemographyen_US
dc.subjectEnvironmental variationen_US
dc.titlePopulation dynamics in a changing world: the consequences of environmental variation for species with complex life historiesen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.type.materialTexten_US
thesis.degree.departmentEcology and Evolutionary Biologyen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineNatural Sciencesen_US
thesis.degree.grantorRice Universityen_US
thesis.degree.levelDoctoralen_US
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophyen_US
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