Population and community projection model.
Models of population size and growth are useful management tools, especially if they project the short- and long-term effects of changes in annual harvest rate, the impact of disease outbreaks or the consequences of extreme, perhaps one-time, management practices such as a major spring harvest. The model being developed projects population size, age structure (proportion juveniles) and growth rate for time periods corresponding to spring, summer and fall inventories. It incorporates feedback between snow and Canada goose survival and reproductive success, the quality and quantity of forage plants, interactions between snow and Canada geese, dispersal over an expanding range, and recovery of the habitat (with the possibility of recolonization by one or both goose species). Because annual variation of weather variables plays a major role in population dynamics in the arctic, the model will be capable of incorporating such stochasticity.
- revised 10/11/97 -