Complex interplay between intrinsic and extrinsic drivers of long-term survival trends in southern elephant seals

BMC Ecology

Table 6 Model ranking for models estimating age-specific survival and recapture probability as a function of environmental stochasticity and population density

Model	ΔQAIC_c	wQAIC_c	k
High density (1951–1964)
ϕ(age-mothert/mother**t) p(t)	0.000	0.995	19
ϕ(age-pupt/pup**t) p(t)	11.300	0.004	24
ϕ(mother*t) p(t)	14.330	0.001	21
ϕ(pup*t) p(t)	16.130	<0.001	21
ϕ(age-density/t) p(t)	17.810	<0.001	15
Low density (1993–1999)
ϕ(age-mothert/mother**t) p(t)	0.000	0.551	22
ϕ(mother*t) p(t)	1.640	0.242	17
ϕ(age-t/mother*t) p(t)	1.970	0.206	23
ϕ(age-pupt/pup**t) p(t)	13.050	0.001	20
ϕ(age-density+mothert/density+mother**t) p(t)	14.200	<0.001	12

Effects of age (age-juvenile/adult), time (t), density of breeding females (density), density of breeding females lagged by one year (dlag) and environmental conditions (SOI during a newly weaned seal's foraging period [pup] and during a mother's pre-partum foraging period [mother] on the probability of survival (ϕ) of southern elephant seals during the high- (1951–1964) and low-density (1993–1999) eras. Models are ranked according to their Akaike weights (w QAIC_c), the relative change in AIC_cscore (ΔQAIC_c), and number of parameters (k), based on an inflation factor (ĉ) of 1.7122.

ISSN: 1472-6785