File Entry: Orcinus orca (Killer whale) demography and population viability analysis (PVA) documentation

Created: 2014-08-29 12:21:35 Last updated: 2014-08-29 16:23:18

Version 1 (of 1)

Version created on: 2014-08-29 12:21:34

Title	Orcinus orca (Killer whale) demography and population viability analysis (PVA) documentation
File name	Workflow Documentation_Killer Whale Demography_PORTAL.pdf
File size	3765025
SHA1	6570a6a3c5a0632efa12b58afb5cbbc74339ff42
Content type	Adobe PDF

Description

This documentation (tutorial to run the workflow) explains how to run a workflow that belongs to the pack with same name.

The workflow only runs under Taverna workbench in Linux, coming soon will be available the version to run under Taverna workbench in Windows.

Therefore the documentation (tutorial to run the workflow) is only available for the Portal: https://portal.biovel.eu/

The Orcinus orca (Killer whale) demography and population viability analysis (PVA) workflow provides an environment to calculate a two-sex stage-structured matrix with no density dependence and to (i) quantify the differences in demographic rates between Orcinus orca population that explain population growth; (ii) to determine the relative influence vital rates on expected population growth; and, (iii) to generate projections of population size at various time horizons.

This workflow performs the following analyses:

• Vital rates estimation and probability distributions

• Construction of Birth-flow Matrix Model

• Eigen analysis

• Elasticity analysis (deterministic and stochastic)

• Damping time

• Stable stage distributions

• IID projection matrices representing discrete time periods

• Retrospective perturbation analysis

• Stochastic population growth from IID matrices and vital rate probability distributions

• Projections of population size.

This tutorial explains the type of input data needed to run the workflow. The corresponding analysis use data from two distinct O. orca populations in Canada, Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKW) and the Northern Resident Killer Whales (NRKW).

Two distinct populations of resident killer whales (Orcinus orca) in the northeastern Pacific Ocean have been identified in Canada and the U.S. as being of conservation concern. The Southern Resident Killer Whale (SRKW) population is currently listed as endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act on the grounds of its small population size and vulnerability to demographic stochasticity and catastrophic events such as oil spills (NMFS 2008). In Canada, under the Species At Risk Act (COSEWIC 2008), SRKW is listed as endangered due to its small and declining population size while the Northern Resident Killer Whale (NRKW) population is listed as threatened due to its small population size. The major threats identified for these two populations are nutritional stress associated with prey abundance levels and availability, particularly Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) (COSEWIC 2008, Ford et al. 2010a, 2010b), pollution and contaminants, and disturbances from vessels and sound (COSEWIC 2008, NMFS 2008). An important difference in the population-size trajectories of these two populations is that, in spite of their home range overlap and potential access to similar resources, SRKW has remained at a population size of less than 100 individuals for the last four decades with an average of 85 individuals in the last decade. NRKW population size has been generally increasing for the last four decades with 268 individuals at the end of 2011.