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A unified framework to quantify demographic buffering in natural populations
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  • Gabriel Santos,
  • Samuel Gascoigne,
  • André Dias,
  • Maja Kajin,
  • Roberto Salguero-Gomez
Gabriel Santos
National Institute of the Atlantic Forest (INMA)
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Samuel Gascoigne
University of Oxford
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André Dias
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
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Maja Kajin
University of Oxford

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Roberto Salguero-Gomez
University of Oxford
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Abstract

The Demographic Buffering Hypothesis (DBH) predicts that natural selection reduces the temporal fluctuations in demographic processes (such as survival, development, and reproduction), due to their negative impacts on population dynamics. However, a comprehensive approach that allows for the examination of demographic buffering patterns across multiple species is still lacking. Here, we propose a three-step framework aimed at quantifying demographic buffering. Firstly, we categorize species along a continuum of variance based on the sums of stochastic elasticities. Secondly, we examine the linear selection gradients, followed by the examination of nonlinear selection gradients as the third step. With these three steps, our framework overcomes existing limitations of conventional approaches to quantify demographic buffering, allows for multi-species comparisons, and offers insight into the evolutionary forces that shape demographic buffering. We apply this framework to mammal species and discuss both the advantages and potential of our framework.