Congratulations Michelle Deprenger-Levin for successfully defending your Ph.D. Degree Thesis!

Michelle Deprenger-Levin

Ph.D. Degree Candidate
CU Denver Department of Integrative Biology

When: Friday, March 15th, 2024, 12:00pm
Where: Science Building, Room 2001

Using demography to inform plant conservation: An examination of uses and pitfalls of conventional population models

Demography is used to detect and predict population trends and assess the impact of management actions. Demographic data is lacking for many rare and threatened or potentially invasive species. To assess the risk of extinction or potential of establishment for species lacking demographic data, this work sets expectations for near-term dynamics by population structure, population size, and life history. Empirical data can be tested against these expectations. However, population models often fail to predict future dynamics. One cause of error that is rarely addressed in plant populations is imperfect detection. There are extensive models to address imperfect detection for mobile organisms but little attention on which models are appropriate for plant populations. I developed a guide to apply statistical models and field methods to address plant population dynamics while accounting for imperfect detection. I then apply these models to a long-term demographic study of a perennial herb to quantify the impact of ignoring imperfect detection.