Animal Population Management

Foundation

The program of this subject has as a general objective that students develop a conceptual transition between the knowledge of ecological theory with population biology and with its application to practical cases. The course aims to provide key elements, to estimate the probabilities that a population will increase or decrease in size; or estimate the number of individuals that can be harvested, while ensuring a high probability that similar harvests will be available in the future. This in the context of maintaining a crop production that is consistent with recreational and / or commercial interests. Other species are seen as convenient, although they are declining in numbers or persist in low abundance. Management objectives for the latter involve increasing abundance in an effort to reduce the probability of extinction in the near future.
Such objectives are appropriate for most threatened and endangered species, and methods for doing so are in the field of biological conservation. In the case of populations that are considered pests, the focus is on reducing their abundance below the damage value they produce, with an emphasis on those that affect public health, and we are in the field of population control .
It is the task of those who are involved in population management to present as fully as possible a picture of the situation that allows decision-making. The table should incorporate mechanistic understanding, deterministic processes, stochastic variables and the set of uncertainties that contribute to the problem. If managing is influencing animal abundance, then it must influence at least one of the four primary processes of populations. In the course we will emphasize the processes of birth, reproduction, migration and death, with the idea that these processes are indeed influenced by the biotic and physical environment and thus allow inferences about individual fitness and population status. To do animal population management we need to use quantitative methods that allow us to predict the future of a population, and express the result numerically. This need to make predictions leads to the application of models. Models play key roles in science and in the management of biological systems, as expressions of biological understanding, as sparks for deductive inference, and as articulations of biological responses to environmental management and change. In this sense, it is necessary to understand and practice theoretical evaluations in concrete examples on fauna of our country and province. Environmental problems, the deterioration of human habitat, problems in public health, socioeconomic demands, pose actions to exercise to preserve, produce and improve the environment we live in, increasingly raising the training of professionals with adequate training in this type of disciplines to give answers to scientific theory and to the claims that come from society.

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Teaching team

Responsible: José Priotto - Cecilia Provensal

Members: Daniela Gomez - José Coda