Visser Marcel E.

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Visser
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Marcel E.
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  • Preprint
    Behavioural, ecological and evolutionary responses to extreme climatic events: challenges and directions
    ( 2017-02) van de Pol, Martijn ; Jenouvrier, Stephanie ; Cornelissen, Johannes H. C. ; Visser, Marcel E.
    More extreme climatic events (ECEs) are amongst the most prominent consequences of climate change. Despite a long‐standing recognition of the importance of ECEs by paleo‐ecologists and macro‐evolutionary biologists, ECEs have only recently received a strong interest in the wider ecological and evolutionary community. However, as with many rapidly expanding fields, it lacks structure and cohesiveness, which strongly limits scientific progress. Furthermore, due to the descriptive and anecdotal nature of many ECE studies it is still unclear what the most relevant questions and long-term consequences are of ECEs. To improve synthesis, we first discuss ways to define ECEs that facilitate comparison among studies. We then argue that biologists should adhere to more rigorous attribution and mechanistic methods to assess ECE impacts. Subsequently, we discuss conceptual and methodological links with climatology and disturbance-, tipping point- and paleo-ecology. These research fields have close linkages with ECE research, but differ in the identity and/or the relative severity of environmental factors. By summarizing the contributions to this theme issue we draw parallels between behavioural, ecological and evolutionary ECE studies, and suggest that an overarching challenge is that most empirical and theoretical evidence points towards responses being highly idiosyncratic, and thus predictability being low. Finally, we suggest a roadmap based on the proposition that an increased focus on the mechanisms behind the biological response function will be crucial for increased understanding and predictability of the impacts of ECE.
  • Article
    Temporal correlations among demographic parameters are ubiquitous but highly variable across species.
    (Wiley, 2022-05-24) Fay, Remi ; Hamel, Sandra ; van de Pol, Martijn ; Gaillard, Jean-Michel ; Yoccoz, Nigel G. ; Acker, Paul ; Authier, Matthieu ; Larue, Benjamin ; Le Coeur, Christie ; Macdonald, Kaitlin R. ; Nicol-Harper, Alex ; Barbraud, Christophe ; Bonenfant, Christophe ; Van Vuren, Dirk H. ; Cam, Emmanuelle ; Delord, Karine ; Gamelon, Marlène ; Moiron, Maria ; Pelletier, Fanie ; Rotella, Jay J. ; Teplitsky, Celine ; Visser, Marcel E. ; Wells, Caitlin P. ; Wheelwright, Nathaniel T. ; Jenouvrier, Stephanie ; Saether, Bernt-Erik
    Temporal correlations among demographic parameters can strongly influence population dynamics. Our empirical knowledge, however, is very limited regarding the direction and the magnitude of these correlations and how they vary among demographic parameters and species’ life histories. Here, we use long-term demographic data from 15 bird and mammal species with contrasting pace of life to quantify correlation patterns among five key demographic parameters: juvenile and adult survival, reproductive probability, reproductive success and productivity. Correlations among demographic parameters were ubiquitous, more frequently positive than negative, but strongly differed across species. Correlations did not markedly change along the slow-fast continuum of life histories, suggesting that they were more strongly driven by ecological than evolutionary factors. As positive temporal demographic correlations decrease the mean of the long-run population growth rate, the common practice of ignoring temporal correlations in population models could lead to the underestimation of extinction risks in most species.
  • Preprint
    Phenological mismatch strongly affects individual fitness but not population demography in a woodland passerine
    ( 2012-02-20) Reed, Thomas E. ; Jenouvrier, Stephanie ; Visser, Marcel E.
    Populations are shifting their phenology in response to climate change, but these shifts are often asynchronous among interacting species. Resulting phenological mismatches can drive simultaneous changes in natural selection and population demography, but the links between these interacting processes are poorly understood. Here we analyse 37 years of data from an individual-based study of great tits (Parus major) in the Netherlands and use mixed-effects models to separate the within- and across-year effects of phenological mismatch between great tits and caterpillars (a key food source for developing nestlings) on components of fitness at the individual and population levels.. Several components of individual fitness were affected by individual mismatch (i.e. late breeding relative to the caterpillar food peak date), including the probability of double-brooding, fledgling success, offspring recruitment probability, and the number of recruits. Together these effects contributed to an overall negative relationship between relative fitness and laying dates, i.e. selection for earlier laying on average. Directional selection for earlier laying was stronger in years where birds bred on average later than the food peak, but was weak or absent in years where the phenology of birds and caterpillars matched (i.e. no population mismatch). The mean number of fledglings per female was lower in years when population mismatch was high, in part because fewer second broods were produced. Population mismatch had a weak effect on the mean number of recruits per female, and no effect on mean adult survival, after controlling for the effects of breeding density and the quality of the autumnal beech (Fagus sylvatica) crop. These findings illustrate how climate-change-44 induced mismatch can have strong effects on the relative fitness of phenotypes within years, but weak effects on mean demographic rates across years. We discuss various general mechanisms that influence the extent of coupling between breeding phenology, selection and population dynamics in open populations subject to strong density regulation and stochasticity.
  • Article
    Individual life histories: neither slow nor fast, just diverse
    (The Royal Society, 2023-07-05) Van de Walle, Joanie ; Fay, Remi ; Gaillard, Jean-Michel ; Pelletier, Fanie ; Hamel, Sandra ; Gamelon, Marlene ; Barbraud, Christophe ; Blanchet, F. Guillaume ; Blumstein, Daniel T. ; Charmantier, Anne ; Delord, Karine ; Larue, Benjamin ; Martin, Julien G.A. ; Mills, James A. ; Milot, Emmanuel ; Mayer, Francine M. ; Rotella, Jay ; Saether, Bernt-Erik ; Teplitsky, Celine ; van de Pol, Martijn ; Van Vuren, Dirk H. ; Visser, Marcel E. ; Wells, Caitlin P. ; Yarrall, John ; Jenouvrier, Stephanie
    The slow–fast continuum is a commonly used framework to describe variation in life-history strategies across species. Individual life histories have also been assumed to follow a similar pattern, especially in the pace-of-life syndrome literature. However, whether a slow–fast continuum commonly explains life-history variation among individuals within a population remains unclear. Here, we formally tested for the presence of a slow–fast continuum of life histories both within populations and across species using detailed long-term individual-based demographic data for 17 bird and mammal species with markedly different life histories. We estimated adult lifespan, age at first reproduction, annual breeding frequency, and annual fecundity, and identified the main axes of life-history variation using principal component analyses. Across species, we retrieved the slow–fast continuum as the main axis of life-history variation. However, within populations, the patterns of individual life-history variation did not align with a slow–fast continuum in any species. Thus, a continuum ranking individuals from slow to fast living is unlikely to shape individual differences in life histories within populations. Rather, individual life-history variation is likely idiosyncratic across species, potentially because of processes such as stochasticity, density dependence, and individual differences in resource acquisition that affect species differently and generate non-generalizable patterns across species.