Analysing population numbers of the House Sparrow in the Netherlands with a matrix model and suggestions for conservation measures

TY - JOUR

T1 - Analysing population numbers of the House Sparrow in the Netherlands with a matrix model and suggestions for conservation measures

AU - Klok, C.

AU - Holtkamp, R.

AU - van Apeldoorn, R.

AU - Visser, M.E.

AU - Hemerik, L.

N1 - Reporting year: 2006 Metis note: 3939; CTE; PVD ; AnE; file:///L:/Endnotedatabases/NIOOPUB/pdfs/Pdfs2006/Klok_ea_3939.pdf

PY - 2006

Y1 - 2006

N2 - The House Sparrow (Passer domesticus), formerly a common bird species, has shown a rapid decline in Western Europe over recent decades. In The Netherlands, its decline is apparent from 1990 onwards. Many causes for this decline have been suggested that all decrease the vital rates, i.e. survival and reproduction, but their actual impact remains unknown. Although the House Sparrow has been dominant in The Netherlands, data on life history characteristics for this bird species are scarce: data on reproduction are non-existent, and here we first present survival estimates based on live encounters and dead recoveries of marked individuals over the period 1976–2003, 14 years before and 14 years during the decline, reported to the Dutch Ringing Centre. We show that there is an indication that both juvenile and adult survival are lower during the period of decline. Secondly, to be able to analyse the relative impact of changes in the vital rates, we formulated a general matrix model based on a range of survival values between zero and one with a step size of 0.01 (both juvenile and adult yearly survival) and a range of realistic reproduction values (one, three or five fledglings per pair per year). With the matrix model, we calculated the finite rate of population change (λ) and applied elasticity analysis. To diagnose the cause of the decline in the Dutch

AB - The House Sparrow (Passer domesticus), formerly a common bird species, has shown a rapid decline in Western Europe over recent decades. In The Netherlands, its decline is apparent from 1990 onwards. Many causes for this decline have been suggested that all decrease the vital rates, i.e. survival and reproduction, but their actual impact remains unknown. Although the House Sparrow has been dominant in The Netherlands, data on life history characteristics for this bird species are scarce: data on reproduction are non-existent, and here we first present survival estimates based on live encounters and dead recoveries of marked individuals over the period 1976–2003, 14 years before and 14 years during the decline, reported to the Dutch Ringing Centre. We show that there is an indication that both juvenile and adult survival are lower during the period of decline. Secondly, to be able to analyse the relative impact of changes in the vital rates, we formulated a general matrix model based on a range of survival values between zero and one with a step size of 0.01 (both juvenile and adult yearly survival) and a range of realistic reproduction values (one, three or five fledglings per pair per year). With the matrix model, we calculated the finite rate of population change (λ) and applied elasticity analysis. To diagnose the cause of the decline in the Dutch

U2 - 10.1007/s10441-006-7871-2

DO - 10.1007/s10441-006-7871-2

M3 - Article

SN - 0001-5342

VL - 54

SP - 161

EP - 178

JO - Acta Biotheoretica

JF - Acta Biotheoretica

IS - 3

ER -