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Structured population models are tools for wildlife protection
Citation:
Pollesch, N. Structured population models are tools for wildlife protection. UMD Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics, Duluth, MN, February 14, 2019.
Impact/Purpose:
Mathematical models are useful tools to support environmental decision making. They can be used for prediction and to explore outcomes of theoretical relationships. The desired output in addition to the form of empirical data can be used to determine mathematical formulation of the model. Structured population modeling seeks to use an observable trait or set of traits, such as size, age, sex, and/or stage, within the population that are strongly linked to demography in order to determine outcomes of simulated scenarios. This talk addresses approaches to developing structured population models to support ecological risk assessment that leverage available toxicity measurements linked to demography in order to help explore the effects of chemicals on wildlife populations.
Description:
When it comes to wildlife, populations are often the level at which protection goals are established, as opposed to individuals. However, direct observations of population-level responses to chemical stressors are scarce (thankfully). Therefore, mathematical models are used to bridge the gap between available observations and desired endpoints by utilizing theoretical relationships. Many theoretical relationships link adverse responses to characteristics of individuals, such as their size, age, sex, or developmental stage. Structured population models use these individual-level characteristics to determine population-level outcomes. In this talk I will present approaches to structured population modeling and show how a class of models called integral projection models can be used for size-structured population modeling to support ecological risk assessment.