Modelling immigration in population dynamics studies can be fraught with analytical complexity and uncertainty. Yet, the role of immigration is vital to understand if we are to gain a holistic picture of what makes populations ‘tick’.

The MIMMP’s flagship 4-decade-long uninterrupted mark-recapture experiment on southern elephant seals provided the model for a recent study to improve insight into the role of immigration in population dynamics. The study by a MIMMP team led by Dr Murray Christian (MIMMP postdoc) was published in the Journal of Animal Ecology earlier this year.

Southern elephant seal bull during a breeding season at marion island. photo: nico de Bruyn

A “Research Highlights” paper entitled “Redefining ‘state-of-the-art’ for integrated population models with immigration” has now been published by Chloé Nater from the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA) praising this work by Murray Christian and colleagues as a ‘benchmark example’!

Christian et al. (2024) is a benchmark example of ‘best practices’ for IPM analyses and a demonstration of how modern science produces not just papers as outputs, but reproducible coding workflows that have the potential to greatly accelerate the pace at which we make scientific progress (Lewis et al., 2018) and create the kind of knowledge needed to respond to the challenges of our rapidly changing world.

(Quoted verbatim from Nater 2024 Journal of Animal Ecology)