Remotely sensed environmental measurements detect decoupled processes driving population dynamics at contrasting scales

The increasing availability of satellite imagery has supported a rapid expansion in forward-looking studies seeking to track and predict how climate change will influence wild population dynamics. However, these data can also be used in retrospect to provide additional context for historical data in the absence of contemporaneous environmental measurements. We used 167 Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper (TM) images spanning 13 years to identify environmental drivers of fitness and population size in a well-characterized population of banner-tailed kangaroo rats (Dipodomys spectabilis) in the southwestern United States. We found evidence of two decoupled processes that may be driving population dynamics in opposing directions over distinct time frames. Specifically, increasing mean surface temperature corresponded to increased individual fitness, where fitness is defined as the number of offspring produced by a single individual. This result contrasts with our findings for population size, where ..., Each file contains the predictor and response variable values used in regressions. For the 'type' column, 1 = annual means, 2 = rainy season means. For the season column where type = 2, 1 = summer rainy season means, 2 = winter rainy season means.,