Résumé
1. Economic activities such as logging and mineral extraction can result
in the creation of new anthropogenic habitats that host specific
biodiversity, including protected species. However, the legislation in
many Western European countries requires the rehabilitation of ‘damaged’
areas following logging and mining operations, which can eliminate these
early successional habitats. Conservation managers face a dilemma in these
situations, but often lack knowledge about the impacts of environmental
rehabilitation on the population dynamics of pioneer species and so are
unable to take this into account in their actions. 2. We investigated the
demography of a spatially structured population of an endangered amphibian
(Bombina variegata) that uses waterbodies created by logging activities as
breeding sites. Using capture–recapture (CR) data collected during a
9-year study period, we examined how the destruction of breeding patches
due to environmental rehabilitation affected adult survival and the
long-term population growth rate. For this purpose, we used recently
developed capture-recapture multievent models to estimate survival and
dispersal rates in the spatially structured population. We then used these
estimates to simulate population trajectories and viability depending on
differing frequency of breeding patch destruction. 3. The multievent
models revealed that dispersal not resulting from patch loss was
relatively high and was sex-biased. They also revealed that patch
destruction had a negative impact on adult survival. Moreover, simulations
showed that the increase of patch destruction frequency had a strong
negative influence on the population growth rate, even when the number of
patch remained constant over time. This impact was intensified if female
fecundity was also affected. 4. Synthesis and applications. Our study
quantified for the first time the detrimental effect of habitat
rehabilitation on the population dynamics of an endangered, pioneer
species. Yet our study also found that this deleterious impact of patch
destruction could be reduced by certain management practices, as avoiding
the systematic rehabilitation of the breeding patches and compensating for
patch destruction by creating substitute breeding patches.