SYDNEY, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- A team of Australian scientists published new findings on Tuesday that demonstrate a more precise way to forecast the population rates of slow-growing, long-living species like dolphins and bears.
Under the new model developed by the University of New South Wales (UNSW) study, less emphasis is given to the survival rate of wildlife and more focus is afforded to the rate of reproduction.
"The way people have analyzed these things in the past has made it look, sometimes incorrectly, that survival rates are the only thing that matters," UNSW professor and co-author Bill Sherwin told Xinhua.
But an analysis of two dolphin populations in Western Australia has challenged the validity of the current forecasting methods.
Researchers found one of the populations was predicted to decline, while the other was stable.
According to the findings, the decline had little to do with the survival rate.
"The only important difference is that the one that is declining has a much lower reproduction rate," Sherwin said.
"We can swap the mortality rates between the two populations, we can swap the total population size that can fit in the area, we can swap anything we like between them but the only thing that causes this difference in the projection for the population is reproduction rates."
The team also tested their ideas on bear population studies in North America and found strikingly similar results.
"It will change the way people study wild animal populations," Sherwin said.
"Hopefully it will also change the way they use the data to make forecasts, so we can get much better forecasts for the populations we are trying to manage."
"Whether it's for threatened populations or for population that are being harvested."
