Data from: Interactive effects of exogenous and endogenous factors on demographic rates of an African rodent

Exogenous and endogenous environmental factors can have simultaneous
additive as well as interacting effects on life-history traits. Ignoring
such interactions can lead to a biased understanding of variability in
demographic rates and consequently population dynamics. These interactions
have been the focus of decades-long debates on the mechanisms underlying
small mammal population fluctuations. They have often been studied
indirectly through seasonal effects, but studies considering them directly
and more mechanistically are rare. We investigated the joint effects of
exogenous (temperature, food availability) and endogenous (population
density) factors on the demographic rates of a group-living diurnal
rodent, the African striped mouse Rhabdomys pumilio using nine-year
mark–recapture data from a population in the Succulent Karoo, South
Africa. In general, higher temperatures and lower food availability were
associated with higher survival, whereas high population densities were
either beneficial or detrimental to survival depending on interacting food
availability. High reproductive rates were related to lower temperatures,
higher food availability and lower population density, and interactions
among environmental factors mediated the strength of these relationships.
Our study highlights the complex ways in which different environmental
factors can interact to shape demographic rates and emphasizes the
importance of explicitly including interactions among exogenous and
endogenous factors into studies of population dynamics.