Environmental stochasticity and population dynamics of large herbivores: a search for mechanisms

Metapopulation viability of a globally endangered gazelle on the Northeast Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau

“…Previous studies have suggested that a combination of stochastic environmental variation and density dependence can strongly affect the population dynamics of large herbivores (Saether, 1997). Moreover, it is generally believed that habitat loss is a major cause of recent species extinctions (Primack and Ma, 2009).…”

Short- and long-term population dynamical consequences of asymmetric climate change in black grouse

“…Climatic conditions influence biological processes (Saether 1997) and changes in long-term climatic trends are demonstrably affecting living systems (Parmesan & Yohe 2003). Consequently, evaluating possible response scenarios in natural populations has become an urgent endeavour for ecologists.…”

Stochastic analogues of deterministic single-species population models

“…Population fluctuations can arise from variation in the environment over time (Walther et al, 2002;Saether, 1997), from intrinsic 'demographic' stochasticity arising from variation in the number of offspring produced per individual (Bartlett, 1960;Royama, 1992), from errors in observations (Valpine & Hastings, 2002) and from deterministic non-linear dynamics, such as cycles and chaos (May, 1976;Turchin, 2003;Berryman, 1999). The combination of these effects, coupled with the fact that ecological time-series are often short, makes the construction of predictive mathematical models notoriously difficult (Turchin & Taylor, 1992).…”