When can the cause of a population decline be determined

摘要: Inferring the factors responsible for declines in abundance is a prerequisite to preventing extinction of wild populations. Many policies and programmes intended prevent extinctions operate on assumption that driving decline population can be determined. Exogenous cause statistically confounded with endogenous such as density dependence. To demonstrate potential confounding, we used an experiment where replicated populations were driven by gradually manipulating habitat quality. In many populations, quality dependence confounded, which obscured causal inference. Our results show confounding likely occur when exogenous are change over time. study has direct implications because could drive through