Applied Demography

Applied demography involves using the knowledge gained from analyzing and understanding populations in order to manage them effectively. The synthesis reviews basic concepts of demography and their application to management of wild populations. There are several major drivers of population change that operate in different ways, including birth rates, death rates, changes in sex ratios, and migration. These concepts can be formalized into mathematical population models that can be used to make predictions about populations under different management scenarios. Four case studies (including the Giant Galápagos Tortoise) are used to illustrate the real-world application of demographic concepts to rare species conservation.