Nature Communications (Apr 2019)

More frequent extreme climate events stabilize reindeer population dynamics

  • Brage B. Hansen,
  • Marlène Gamelon,
  • Steve D. Albon,
  • Aline M. Lee,
  • Audun Stien,
  • R. Justin Irvine,
  • Bernt-Erik Sæther,
  • Leif E. Loe,
  • Erik Ropstad,
  • Vebjørn Veiberg,
  • Vidar Grøtan

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09332-5
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10, no. 1
pp. 1 – 8

Abstract

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Extreme climate events can cause population crashes and may threaten population persistence. Here, the authors model reindeer population dynamics and find that more frequent extremely icy winters can actually reduce extinction risk due to density dependence and a demographic shift to resilient ages.