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Data integration is a statistical modeling approach that incorporates multiple data sources within a unified analytical framework. Macrosystems ecology – the study of ecological phenomena at broad scales, including interactions across scales – increasingly employs data integration techniques to expand the spatiotemporal scope of research and inferences, increase the precision of parameter estimates, and account for multiple sources of uncertainty in estimates of multiscale processes. We highlight four common analytical challenges to data integration in macrosystems ecology research: data scale mismatches, unbalanced data, sampling biases, and model development and assessment. We explain each problem, discuss current approaches to address the issue, and describe potential areas of research to overcome these hurdles. Use of data integration techniques has increased rapidly in recent years, and given the inferential value of such approaches, we expect continued development and wider application across ecological disciplines, especially in macrosystems ecology.

Rapidly warming global temperatures are having a widespread influence on wildlife communities across taxa, with southern‐edge populations often experiencing the greatest negative impacts. However, sympatric species may exhibit divergent demographic responses due to differences in life history strategies and niche separation. We used integrated population models to estimate abundance, survival, and productivity for Atlantic Puffins and Razorbills nesting at the southern edge of their breeding range in the rapidly warming Gulf of Maine. We then conducted transient life table response experiments to understand the relative importance of demographic parameters in driving population dynamics. We found that the Atlantic Puffin population remained relatively stable over the 22‐year study period, whereas the Razorbill population increased substantially. Estimates of mean survival and productivity were similar between the study species but were at the lower range of values reported in the literature across their range. Despite similar estimates of mean productivity, interannual variation in this demographic rate was much higher in Puffins than Razorbills. Overall, adult survival was found to be the primary driver of population dynamics for both species yet shows evidence of long‐term decline in Puffins. For Razorbills, we found similar evidence of long‐term decline in first‐year survival. Overall, our findings suggest that these sympatric species may be responding differently to shared environmental conditions. Given the observed long‐term decrease in Puffin adult survival, future monitoring and conservation efforts for this species should be focused outside the breeding season in critical overwintering areas and migratory locations where adult mortality is typically concentrated. Similarly, given the observed long‐term decline in Razorbill first‐year survival, additional monitoring and tracking of chicks is warranted for this species to understand where immature individuals are going after they fledge from the colony. The Gulf of Maine is warming faster than much of the global ocean and represents the southern breeding range edge for Atlantic Puffins (Fratercula arctica) and Razorbills (Alca torda). To understand how the dynamics of these southern‐edge populations have changed over time, we used integrated population models to estimate abundance, survival, and productivity from 1998 to 2019. Overall, we found evidence of long‐term decline in adult survival for Puffins and first‐year survival for Razorbills suggesting that these southern‐edge populations may be experiencing demographic impacts due to rapid warming in the Gulf of Maine.

Quantifying how climate and land use factors drive population dynamics at regional scales is complex because it depends on the extent of spatial and temporal synchrony among local populations, and the integration of population processes throughout a species’ annual cycle. We modeled weekly, site-specific summer abundance (1994–2013) of monarch butterflies Danaus plexippus at sites across Illinois, USA to assess relative associations of monarch abundance with climate and land use variables during the winter, spring, and summer stages of their annual cycle. We developed negative binomial regression models to estimate monarch abundance during recruitment in Illinois as a function of local climate, site-specific crop cover, and county-level herbicide (glyphosate) application. We also incorporated cross-seasonal covariates, including annual abundance of wintering monarchs in Mexico and climate conditions during spring migration and breeding in Texas, USA. We provide the first empirical evidence of a negative association between county-level glyphosate application and local abundance of adult monarchs, particularly in areas of concentrated agriculture. However, this association was only evident during the initial years of the adoption of herbicide-resistant crops (1994–2003). We also found that wetter and, to a lesser degree, cooler springs in Texas were associated with higher summer abundances in Illinois, as were relatively cool local summer temperatures in Illinois. Site-specific abundance of monarchs averaged approximately one fewer per site from 2004–2013 than during the previous decade, suggesting a recent decline in local abundance of monarch butterflies on their summer breeding grounds in Illinois. Our results demonstrate that seasonal climate and land use are associated with trends in adult monarch abundance, and our approach highlights the value of considering fine-resolution temporal fluctuations in population-level responses to environmental conditions when inferring the dynamics of migratory species.

Nature-based solutions (NbS) can mitigate the climate crisis and provide co-benefits to biodiversity and human well-being. We identified opportunities for NbS in the US by mapping both critical habitat for birds under a changing climate and carbon stocks and sinks. We then investigated the alignment of these locations with areas important for human well-being and land-dependencies. Finally, we identified High Priority NbS areas that align with irrecoverable carbon to focus conservation efforts on places with significant long-term carbon storage potential. Although ~ 30% of US lands have some protection, < 3% of protected US lands align with priorities for birds, carbon, and human well-being. Of the 312 million acres of priority areas for birds, carbon, and human well-being identified, 71% lack legal protection or formal conservation plans (14% of US lands). Targeting such areas for NbS conservation and restoration would help achieve equitable climate benefits by guiding conservation investments to marginalized communities, while also ensuring maintenance of lands that are critical for biodiversity tracking a changing climate. At least 80% of all birds, carbon, and human well-being priorities co-occur with local communities who have cultural and socioeconomic ties to the land, making it imperative to work with these communities to achieve successful conservation outcomes.

Wetland birds are undergoing severe population declines in North America, with habitat degradation and wetland loss considered two of the primary causes. Due to the cryptic nature of many wetland bird species, the ecological conditions (e.g., matrix composition) that influence bird occupancy, and the relevant spatial scales at which to measure bird responses, remain unclear but may affect inference about wetland use and suitability. We conducted wetland bird surveys at 477 points across northeastern Illinois and northwestern Indiana within the highly urbanized landscape surrounding Chicago. Using remotely sensed land cover data, we built occupancy models for 10 wetland bird species (American Coot Fulica americana, Black‐crowned Night‐Heron Nycticorax nycticorax, Blue‐winged Teal Anas discors, Common Gallinule Gallinula galeata, Least Bittern Ixobrychus exilis, Marsh Wren Cistothorus palustris, Pied‐billed Grebe Podilymbus podiceps, Sora Porzana carolina, Swamp Sparrow Melospiza georgiana, and Virginia Rail Rallus limicola) to quantify their responses to wetland cover types (emergent wetland, forested wetland, riverine wetland, and freshwater pond) and urbanization at four spatial scales (200‐, 400‐, 800‐, and 2000‐m radial distances). We also included the distance to Lake Michigan as a covariate in occupancy models to account for ecological differences between coastal and inland wetlands. We found that relationships between land cover types and occupancy differed by species, as did the spatial scale of support. Generally, the presence of emergent wetlands or ponds at immediate (200 m) and local (400 m) spatial scales within the surrounding matrix was positively associated with wetland bird occupancy. Contrary to expectations, we did not find support for a negative relationship between urbanization and occupancy for most focal species, indicating that birds are using available wetland habitats despite surrounding development. While future research should evaluate management strategies at the watershed scale, our findings suggest that wetland conservation planning at immediate and local scales is likely to promote bird habitat use within highly modified landscapes of the Upper Midwestern United States.

Projecting species’ responses to future climate conditions is critical for anticipating conservation challenges and informing proactive policy and management decisions. However, best practices for choosing climate models for projection ensembles are currently in flux. We compared including a maximum number of models against trimming ensembles based on model validation. This was done within the emerging practice of ensemble building using an increasingly larger number of global climate models (GCMs) for future projections. We used recently reported estimates on primary drivers of population fluctuations for the migratory monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) to examine how multiple sources of uncertainty impact population forecasts for a well‐studied species. We compared mean spring temperature and precipitation observed in Texas from 1980 to 2005 with predictions from 16 GCMs to determine which of the models performed best. We then built tailored climate projections accumulating both temperature (in the form of growing degree days) and rainfall using both “complete” (all 16) and “trimmed” (best‐performing) ensembles based on three emission scenarios. We built the tailored projections of spring growing conditions to assess the range of possible climate outcomes and their potential impacts on monarch development. Results were similar when mean predictions were compared between trimmed and complete ensembles. However, when daily projections and uncertainty were accumulated over the entire spring season, we showed substantial differences between ensembles in terms of possible ecological outcomes. Ensembles that used all 16 GCMs included so much uncertainty that projections for future spring conditions ranged from being too cold to too hot for monarch development. GCMs based on best‐performing metrics provided much more useful information, projecting higher spring temperatures for developing monarch larvae in the future which could lead to larger summer populations but also suggesting risk from excessive heat. When there is a strong basis for identifying mechanistic drivers of population dynamics, our results support using a smaller subset of validated GCMs to bracket a range of the most defensible future environmental conditions tailored to the species of interest. Yet understating uncertainty remains a risk, and we recommend clearly articulating the rationale and consequences of selecting GCMs for long‐term projections.

The conservation of migratory birds poses a fundamental challenge, their conservation requires coordinated action across the hemisphere, but those actions must be designed and implemented locally. To address this challenge, we describe a multilevel framework for linking broad‐scale, full annual cycle prioritizations to local conservation actions for migratory birds. We developed hemisphere‐scale spatial prioritizations for the full annual cycle of migratory birds that breed in six different ecosystems in North America. The full annual cycle prioritizations provide a hemispheric context within which regional priorities can be identified. Finer resolution, regional prioritizations can then inform local conservation actions more effectively. We describe the importance of local conservation practitioner contributions at each level of the process and provide two examples of regional spatial prioritizations that were developed to guide local action. The first example focused on coastal North and South Carolina, USA, and used information on marsh birds, shorebirds, ecological integrity, and co‐benefits for people to identify Cape Romain, South Carolina as a high‐priority site for conservation action. The second example in Colombia used information on migrant and resident birds to identify the Cauca Valley as a high‐priority site. The multilevel conceptual framework we describe is one pathway for identifying sites for implementation of local conservation actions that are guided by conservation priorities for migratory birds across their full annual cycle. A fundamental challenge to migratory bird conservation is translating global scale processes to localized conservation actions. Here we describe a multilevel framework for using hemisphere‐scale, full annual cycle spatial prioritizations to inform on‐the‐ground conservation actions. Our framework illustrates how multi‐scale conservation planning can bring conservation practitioners together to develop locally relevant conservation plans that are in the context of hemispheric perspectives.

1. Predicting population responses to environmental conditions or management scenarios is a fundamental challenge for conservation. Proper consideration of demographic, environmental and parameter uncertainties is essential for projecting population trends and optimal conservation strategies. 2. We developed a coupled integrated population model-Bayesian population viability analysis to assess the (1) impact of demographic rates (survival, fecundity, immigration) on past population dynamics; (2) population viability 10 years into the future; and (3) efficacy of possible management strategies for the federally endangered Great Lakes piping plover Charadrius meiodus population. 3. Our model synthesizes long-term population survey, nest monitoring and mark-resight data, while accounting for multiple sources of uncertainty. We incorporated latent abundance of eastern North American merlins Falco columbarius, a primary predator of adult plovers, as a covariate on adult survival via a parallel state-space model, accounting for the influence of an imperfectly observed process (i.e. predation pressure) on population viability. 4. Mean plover abundance increased from 18 pairs in 1993 to 75 pairs in 2016, but annual population growth (λ̄t) was projected to be 0.95 (95% Cl 0.72-1.12), suggesting a potential decline to 67 pairs within 10 years. Without accounting for an expanding merlin population, we would have concluded that the plover population was projected to increase (λ̄t = 1.02; 95% Cl 0.94-1.09) to 91 pairs by 2026. We compared four conservation scenarios: (1) no proposed management; (2) increased control of chick predators (e.g. Corvidae, Laridae, mammals); (3) increased merlin control; and (4) simultaneous chick predator and merlin control. Compared to the null scenario, chick predator control reduced quasi-extinction probability from 11.9% to 8.7%, merlin control more than halved (3.5%) the probability and simultaneous control reduced quasi-extinction probability to 2.6%. 5. Synthesis and applications. Piping plover recovery actions should consider systematic predator control, rather than current ad hoc protocols, especially given the predicted increase in regional merlin abundance. This approach of combining integrated population models with Bayesian population viability analysis to identify limiting components of the population cycle and evaluate alternative management strategies for conservation decision-making shows great utility for aiding recovery of threatened populations.

Monarch butterflies in eastern North America have declined by 84% on Mexican wintering grounds since the observed peak in 1996. However, coarse-scale population indices from northern US breeding grounds do not show a consistent downward trend. This discrepancy has led to speculation that autumn migration may be a critical limiting period. We address this hypothesis by examining the role of multiscale processes impacting monarchs during autumn, assessed using arrival abundances at all known winter colony sites over a 12-y period (2004–2015). We quantified effects of continental-scale (climate, landscape greenness, and disease) and local-scale (colony habitat quality) drivers of spatiotemporal trends in winter colony sizes. We also included effects of peak summer and migratory population indices. Our results demonstrate that higher summer abundance on northern breeding grounds led to larger winter colonies as did greener autumns, a proxy for increased nectar availability in southern US floral corridors. Colony sizes were also positively correlated with the amount of local dense forest cover and whether they were located within the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, but were not influenced by disease rates. Although we demonstrate a demographic link between summer and fine-scale winter population sizes, we also reveal that conditions experienced during, and at the culmination of, autumn migration impact annual dynamics. Monarchs face a growing threat if floral resources and winter habitat availability diminish under climate change. Our study tackles a long-standing gap in the monarch’s annual cycle and highlights the importance of evaluating migratory conditions to understand mechanisms governing long-term population trends.

Few investigators have studied the offspring sex ratios of monomorphic shorebirds because visually determining the sex of juveniles is not possible. We investigated the ontogeny of an observed male-biased adult sex ratio in the federally endangered Great Lakes population of Piping Plovers (Charadrius melodus). We determined sex ratios at hatching, banding (x̄ = 9.0 d old), and fledging (23 d old) to determine if the bias arises during the pre-fledging period and, if so, at what stage. For three consecutive years (2012–2014), we used a molecular technique to determine the sex of 307 chicks and followed individuals to a stage where survival to fledging could be inferred. Within fully-sexed broods at hatching, the average proportions of male chicks (2012–2014) were 0.47, 0.58, and 0.54, respectively. At banding, the sex ratio remained unbiased in 2012 (0.51), but was male-biased in 2013 (0.59) and 2014 (0.57). Overall, the sex ratio did not differ significantly from parity at fledging in 2012, but did differ during 2013 (P = 0.01) and 2014 (P = 0.03). Using logistic regression models fit using Bayesian inference, we found strong support for a sex effect on chick survival to fledging age, with higher male than female survival (μmale = 0.83 [95% credible interval: 0.75–0.90]; μfemale = 0.71 [0.61–0.80]). These results suggest that the male-biased adult sex ratio in Piping Plovers arises, in part, due to differential survival during the pre-fledging period. This difference did not result from female chicks hatching later in the season or weighing less at banding than male chicks, factors that could potentially affect the likelihood of survival. Future investigations into possible behavioral- or weather-related influences on sex-specific survival are needed. Our results have important implications for (1) identifying management efforts needed to increase recruitment given female-biased chick mortality, and (2) conducting population viability analyses, which frequently assume an unbiased fledgling sex ratio. Pocos investigadores han estudiado la tasa de sexos de las cría de aves marinas monomórficas debido a que la determinación visual del sexo de los juveniles no es posible. Investigamos la ontogenia en la población con estatus Amenazada a nivel Federal de los Grandes Lagos del Chorlo chiflador (Charadrius melodus) que presenta una tasa se sexos sesgada hacia los machos en adultos. Determinamos la tasa de sexos al nacer, al momento de anillarlos (x̄ = 9.0 días de edad), y cuando son volantones (23 día de edad) para determinar si el sesgo surge durante el período prevolantón y, si es así, en que estadio. Durante tres años consecutivos (2012–2014), utilizamos una técnica molecular para determinar el sexo de 307 pichones y seguimos a los individuos a un estadio donde la superviviencia a volantón podia ser inferida. Dentro de cada nidada completamente sexada al nacer, la proporción relativa de pichones macho (2012–2014) fue de 0.47, 0.58, y 0.54, respectivamente. Al momento del anillado, la tasa de sexos permaneció sin sesgo en 2012 (0.51), pero se encontró sesgada hacia los machos en 2013 (0.59) y 2014 (0.57). En general, la tasa de sexos no difirió significativamente de la igualdad en los volantones en 2012, pero sí difirió durante el 2013 (P = 0.01) y el 2014 (P = 0.03). Usando modelos de ajuste a regresión logística usando inferencia bayesiana, encontramos fuerte soporte para un efecto del sexo en la superviviencia de los pichones hacia la edad de volantón, siendo más alta la superviviencia de machos que de hembras (μmachos = 0.83 [95% intervalo de credibilidad: 0.75–0.90]; μhembras = 0.71 [0.61–0.80]). Estos resultados sugieren que el sesgo en la tasa de sexos hacia los machos en el Chorlo chiflador surge, en parte, debido a una superviviencia diferencial durante el período pre-volantón. Estas diferencias no se debieron a que las hembras nacieran más tarde en la temporada o a que pesaran menos que los machos durante el anillado, factores que podrían potencialmente afectar la probabilidad de la superviviencia. Futuras investigaciones sobre las posibles influencias comportamentales o dependientes del clima en la superviviencia sexo-específica son necesarias. Nuestros resultados tienen importantes implicancias para (1) identificar esfuerzos de manejo necesarios a fin de incrementar el reclutamiento dada la mortalidad sesgada hacia las hembras de los pichones, y (2) llevar a cabo análisis de viabilidad poblacional, que frecuentemente asumen una tasa de sexos sin sesgo.