Modelling the population dynamics of the Grey Partridge: conservation and management.

Abstract

Computers first became available for use in ecological research in the late 1950s and by the mid-1960s a number of population simulation models had been published. These population models were mainly for harvested commercial fish or for insect pests. It was not until 1969 that they were first used on a bird, the Great Tit Parus major (Pennycuick 1969).
Even today, when desk-top computers have become ubiquitous and when computers could solve many of the questions that ecologists ask about bird populations, few ornithologists undertake population modelling. The purpose of this paper is therefore to show how, in the case of the Grey Partridge Perdix perdix, simple modelling has been an invaluable aid to the more orthodox observational and experimental methods used to study population dynamics. We argue that many practical questions, for example the calculation of sustainable yields, compensatory survival, and the comparison of management options, can best be answered by population simulation modelling combined with data obtained by experimentation.