The influence of habitat alteration is widespread, but the impact of climate cannot continue to be discounted
In Dickie et al. (2024), we contrasted the effects of climate and habitat alteration on white-tailed deer density, recognizing the role of both these factors. Barnas et al.'s (2024) critique raised concerns about data transformations, model overfitting, and inference methods, but our analysis demonstrates that these criticisms are either unfounded or align with our original conclusions. We reaffirm that while both climate and habitat alteration contribute to deer densities, management decisions cannot ignore the strong role of climate, which is only predicted to increase in coming decades.
Authors
- Robert Serrouya (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5233-6081)
- Adam T. Ford (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2509-7980)
- Craig A. DeMars (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7984-633X)
- Michael Noonan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4512-0535)
- Marcus Becker (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4182-4044)
- Melanie Dickie (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2177-2352)
- Stan A. Boutin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6317-038X)
- Robin Steenweg (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6399-372X)
Institutions
- Environment and Climate Change Canada (CA)
- University of British Columbia (CA)
- University of Alberta (CA)
- Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (CA)
- University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus (CA)
- Okanagan University College (CA)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Global Change Biology
- Published
- 2024-09-01
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.17497
- Primary Topic
- Climate variability and models
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00