Subpopulation contributions to a breeding metapopulation of migratory Arctic herbivores: Survival, fecundity, and asymmetric dispersal

Estimates of demographic parameters for lesser snow geese (Anser caerulescens caerulescens) have become critical to understand ecosystem change in northern Canada. Exponential increase in abundance has produced hyperdensities of these herbivores that can affect Arctic ecosystem stability through intense foraging. Increased and sustained marking of individually-identifiable lesser snow geese over their breeding distribution now permits joint estimation of local vital rates and movement probabilities among widely scattered subpopulations. We used multi-state models, including an unobservable state, with live captures from 5 subpopulations and dead recoveries to estimate annual probabilities of (i) survival, (ii) capture, (iii) reported mortality and (iv) movement to other subpopulations, as well as derived estimates for probabilities of site fidelity and harvest. Our dataset included 144,754 captures of 139,177 lesser snow geese marked with metal legbands, from 2006 to 2015, of which 5,54...