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APPLICATION OF PERTURBATION SIMULATIONS IN POPULATION RISK ASSESSMENT FOR DIFFERENT LIFE HISTORY STRATEGIES AND ELASTICITY PATTERNS
Citation:
RAIMONDO, SANDY, C. L. MCKENNEY, AND M. G. BARRON. APPLICATION OF PERTURBATION SIMULATIONS IN POPULATION RISK ASSESSMENT FOR DIFFERENT LIFE HISTORY STRATEGIES AND ELASTICITY PATTERNS. HUMAN AND ECOLOGICAL RISK ASSESSMENT. CRC Press LLC, Boca Raton, FL, 12(5):983-999, (2006).
Impact/Purpose:
to better understand how populations respond to stressor-induced impairments
Description:
Population structure and life history strategies are determinants of how populations respond to stressor-induced impairments in organism-level responses, but a consistent and holistic analysis has not been reported. Effects on population growth rate were modeled using seven theoretical
constructs that represented the life history strategies and elasticity patterns of a broad range of species. Simulations of low to high ranges of simultaneous reductions in survival and reproduction were conducted and results indicated that stressor impacts on population growth rate were a function of population characteristics and the magnitude of the stress. Species that had high reproductive elasticity had greater population-level impacts than species with high survival elasticity for the same organism-level effects. Perturbation simulations were performed to assess the extinction risk in two species with similar elasticity patterns but different life history strategies: mysid shrimp, Americamysis bahia, and the gypsy moth, Lymantria dispar, K- and r-strategists, respectively. Deterministic extinction risk was greater for the K-strategist which indicated that population level risks were dependent on life history strategies, and toxicity values (e.g., LC5Os) should be interpreted with caution. The model was validated using toxicity test data of mysids exposed to 53 toxicant-concentration.