Population viability analysis
Encyclopedia
Population viability analysis (PVA) is a species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

-specific method of risk assessment
Risk assessment
Risk assessment is a step in a risk management procedure. Risk assessment is the determination of quantitative or qualitative value of risk related to a concrete situation and a recognized threat...

 frequently used in conservation biology
Conservation biology
Conservation biology is the scientific study of the nature and status of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction...

.
It is traditionally defined as the process that determines the probability that a population will go extinct within a given number of years.
More recently, PVA has been described as a marriage of ecology
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...

 and statistics
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....

 that brings together species characteristics and environmental variability to forecast population health and extinction risk. Each PVA is individually developed for a target population or species, and consequently, each PVA is unique. The larger goal in mind when conducting a PVA is to ensure that the population of a species is self-sustaining over the long term.

Uses

Population viability analysis (PVA) is used to estimate the likelihood of a population’s extinction and indicate the urgency of recovery efforts, and identify key life stages or processes that should be the focus of recovery efforts. PVA is also used to compare proposed management options and assess existing recovery efforts. PVA is frequently used in endangered species
Endangered species
An endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters...

 management to develop a plan of action, rank the pros and cons of different management scenarios, and assess the potential impacts of habitat loss.

History

In the 1970s, Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park, established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872, is a national park located primarily in the U.S. state of Wyoming, although it also extends into Montana and Idaho...

 was the centre of a heated debate over different proposals to manage the Park’s problem grizzly bears (Ursus arctos). In 1978, Mark Shaffer proposed a model for the grizzlies that incorporated random variability, and calculated extinction probabilities and minimum viable population
Minimum Viable Population
Minimum viable population is a lower bound on the population of a species, such that it can survive in the wild. This term is used in the fields of biology, ecology, and conservation biology...

 size. The first PVA is credited to Shaffer.

PVA gained popularity in the United States as federal agencies and ecologists required methods to evaluate the risk of extinction and possible outcomes of management decisions, particularly in accordance with the Endangered Species Act
Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is one of the dozens of United States environmental laws passed in the 1970s. Signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973, it was designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and...

 of 1966, and the National Forest Management Act of 1976.

In 1986, Gilpin and Soulé broadened the PVA definition to include the interactive forces that affect the viability of a population, including genetics.
The use of PVA increased dramatically in the late 1980s and early 1990s following advances in personal computers and software packages.

Examples

A PVA for the endangered Fender’s Blue butterfly (Icaricia icarioides) was recently performed with a goal of providing additional information to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service
United States Fish and Wildlife Service
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is a federal government agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats...

, which was developing a recovery plan for the species. The PVA concluded that the species was more at risk of extinction than previously thought and identified key sites where recovery efforts should be focused. The PVA also indicated that because the butterfly populations fluctuate widely from year to year, to prevent the populations from going extinct the minimum annual population growth rate must be kept much higher than at levels typically considered acceptable for other species.

Following a recent outbreak of canine distemper virus, a PVA was performed for the critically endangered island fox
Island Fox
The island fox is a small fox that is native to six of the eight Channel Islands of California. There are six subspecies of the fox, each unique to the island it lives on, reflecting its evolutionary history...

 (Urocyon littoralis) of Santa Catalina Island, California
Santa Catalina Island, California
Santa Catalina Island, often called Catalina Island, or just Catalina, is a rocky island off the coast of the U.S. state of California. The island is long and across at its greatest width. The island is located about south-southwest of Los Angeles, California. The highest point on the island is...

. The Santa Catalina island fox population is uniquely composed of two subpopulations that are separated by an isthmus
Isthmus
An isthmus is a narrow strip of land connecting two larger land areas usually with waterforms on either side.Canals are often built through isthmuses where they may be particularly advantageous to create a shortcut for marine transportation...

, with the eastern subpopulation at greater risk of extinction than the western subpopulation. PVA was conducted with the goals of 1) evaluating the island fox’s extinction risk, 2) estimating the island fox’s sensitivity to catastrophic events, and 3) evaluating recent recovery efforts which include release of captive-bred foxes and transport of wild juvenile foxes from the west to the east side. Results of the PVA concluded that the island fox is still at significant risk of extinction, and is highly susceptible to catastrophes that occur more than once every 20 years. Furthermore, extinction risks and future population sizes on both sides of the island were significantly dependent on the number of foxes released and transported each year.

Controversy

Debates exist and remain unresolved over the appropriate uses of PVA in conservation biology and PVA’s ability to accurately assess extinction risks.

A large quantity of field data is desirable for PVA; some conservatively estimate that for a precise extinction probability assessment extending T years into the future, five-to-ten times T years of data are needed. Datasets of such magnitude are typically unavailable for rare species; it has been estimated that suitable data for PVA is available for only 2% of threatened bird species. PVA for threatened and endangered species is particularly a problem as the predictive power of PVA plummets dramatically with minimal datasets. Ellner et al. (2002) argued that PVA has little value in such circumstances and is best replaced by other methods. Others argue that PVA remains the best tool available for estimations of extinction risk, especially with the use of sensitivity model runs.

Even with an adequate dataset, it is possible that a PVA can still have large errors in extinction rate predictions. It is impossible to incorporate all future possibilities into a PVA: habitats may change, catastrophes may occur, new diseases may be introduced. PVA utility can be enhanced by multiple model runs with varying sets of assumptions including the forecast future date. Some prefer to use PVA always in a relative analysis of benefits of alternative management schemes, such as comparing proposed resource management plans.

Future directions

Improvements to PVA likely to occur in the near future include: 1) creating a fixed definition of PVA and scientific standards of quality by which all PVA are judged, 2) developing reliable PVA for plants, 3) incorporating recent genetic advances into PVA, and 4) integrating data and parameter estimation within the PVA.

See also

  • Biodiversity
    Biodiversity
    Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...

  • Endangered Species Act
    Endangered Species Act
    The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is one of the dozens of United States environmental laws passed in the 1970s. Signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973, it was designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and...

  • IUCN Red List
    IUCN Red List
    The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species , founded in 1963, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature is the world's main authority on the conservation status of species...

  • Minimum viable population
    Minimum Viable Population
    Minimum viable population is a lower bound on the population of a species, such that it can survive in the wild. This term is used in the fields of biology, ecology, and conservation biology...

  • Population dynamics
    Population dynamics
    Population dynamics is the branch of life sciences that studies short-term and long-term changes in the size and age composition of populations, and the biological and environmental processes influencing those changes...

  • Population genetics
    Population genetics
    Population genetics is the study of allele frequency distribution and change under the influence of the four main evolutionary processes: natural selection, genetic drift, mutation and gene flow. It also takes into account the factors of recombination, population subdivision and population...


External links

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