Full-annual demography and seasonal cycles in a resident vertebrate

Abstract

Demography is usually studied at a single point in time within a year when species, mostly long-distance migrants, are more active and easier to find. However, this provides only a low-resolution glimpse into demographic temporal patterns, compromising a complete understanding of species population dynamics over full annual cycles. The full annual cycle is often influenced by environmental seasonality, which induces a cyclic behavior in many species. However, cycles have rarely been explicitly included in models for demographic parameters, and most information on full annual cycle demography is restricted to migratory species. Here we used a high-resolution capture-recapture study of a resident tropical lizard to assess the full intra-annual demography and within-year periodicity in survival, temporary emigration and recapture probabilities. We found important variation over the annual cycle and up to 92% of the total monthly variation explained by cycles. Fine-scale demographic studies and assessments on the importance of cycles within parameters are fundamental to understand population persistence over time.