Announcing the Final Examination of Federico López Borghesi for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Biology
In the face of unprecedented anthropogenic change, we increasingly turn to extensive data sets and emergent technologies for solutions that might complement much needed systemic changes in our societies. These novel technological solutions, however, must be approached with care. We must recognize and address biases in the way data has been accumulated. In population ecology, dormant life stages, such as seed banks, and other cryptic factors have often been neglected by demographic studies. The potential consequences of these omissions have been extensively described in the literature. In the first part of this work, I analyzed patterns of seed bank omissions in demographic models, finding unjustified omissions are widespread across ecoregions, growth forms, and taxonomic groups. More importantly, studies with longer duration and accounting for a greater range of environmental conditions were less likely to neglect the seed bank. Using wild and translocated populations of Dicerandra christmanii, I explored the use of Bayesian-fitted Integral Projection Models (IPMs) to combine different data sources to incorporate seed dynamics into demographic models. By propagating uncertainty from vital rates to derived population metrics, this study illustrates the consequences of accounting for the seed bank stage and site condition to our assessment of population viability. In the final part of this work, I present potential routes to expand field and modeling tools to help address the inclusion of dormant and cryptic life stages into demographic studies.
Committee in Charge:
Pedro F. Quintana-Ascencio (Chair)
Dr. Chase Mason
Dr. Kenneth M. Fedorka
Dr. Noelle G. Beckman (External Committee Member)
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