Data from: Range expansion and population dynamics of an invasive species: the Eurasian Collared-Dove (Streptopelia decaocto)

Invasive species offer ecologists the opportunity to study the factors governing species distributions and population growth. The Eurasian Collared-Dove (Streptopelia decaocto) serves as a model organism for invasive spread because of the wealth of abundance records and the recent development of the invasion. We tested whether a set of environmental variables were related to the carrying capacities and growth rates of individual populations by modeling the growth trajectories of individual populations of the Collared-Dove using Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) and Christmas Bird Count (CBC) data. Depending on the fit of our growth models, carrying capacity and growth rate parameters were extracted and modeled using historical, geographical, land cover and climatic predictors. Model averaging and individual variable importance weights were used to assess the strength of these predictors. The specific variables with the greatest support in our models differed between data sets, which may be the result of temporal and spatial differences between the BBS and CBC. However, our results indicate that both carrying capacity and population growth rates are related to developed land cover and temperature, while growth rates may also be influenced by dispersal patterns along the invasion front. Model averaged multivariate models explained 35–48% and 41–46% of the variation in carrying capacities and population growth rates, respectively. Our results suggest that widespread species invasions can be evaluated within a predictable population ecology framework. Land cover and climate both have important effects on population growth rates and carrying capacities of Collared-Dove populations. Efforts to model aspects of population growth of this invasive species were more successful than attempts to model static abundance patterns, pointing to a potentially fruitful avenue for the development of improved invasive distribution models.

外来入侵物种为生态学家提供了研究调控物种分布与种群增长因子的重要契机。欧亚领斑鸠（Streptopelia decaocto）因其拥有丰富的种群丰度记录且入侵过程尚处于近期发展阶段，成为研究入侵扩散的模式生物。本研究依托繁殖鸟类调查（Breeding Bird Survey, BBS）与圣诞鸟类统计（Christmas Bird Count, CBC）数据，通过拟合领斑鸠各单个种群的增长轨迹，检验一系列环境变量是否与种群承载力及种群增长率存在关联。根据增长模型的拟合效果，研究人员提取种群承载力与增长率参数，并采用历史、地理、土地覆盖及气候类预测因子对上述参数进行建模分析。我们运用模型平均法与单变量重要性权重，评估各预测因子的解释效力。不同数据集在最优拟合模型中支持度最高的变量存在差异，这一现象可能源于BBS与CBC在时间与空间尺度上的固有差异。尽管如此，研究结果表明，种群承载力与种群增长率均与开发型土地覆盖及气温显著相关，而种群增长率还可能受到入侵前沿扩散模式的影响。经模型平均后的多变量模型可分别解释35%~48%的种群承载力变异与41%~46%的种群增长率变异。本研究结果证实，大范围的物种入侵事件可在可预测的种群生态学框架下开展系统评估。土地覆盖与气候均对领斑鸠种群的增长率及承载力具有重要调控作用。相较于模拟静态种群丰度模式的尝试，针对该入侵物种种群增长相关特征的建模工作取得了更为理想的效果，这为开发更完善的入侵物种分布模型指明了一条颇具前景的研究路径。