Quantifying the contribution of immigration to population dynamics: a review of methods, evidence and perspectives in birds and mammals

The demography of a population is often reduced to the apparent (or local) survival of individuals and their realised fecundity within a study area defined according to logistical constraints rather than landscape features. Such demographics are then used to infer whether a local population contributes positively to population dynamics across a wider landscape context. Such a simplistic approach ignores a fundamental process underpinning...