Within‐year and among‐year variation in impacts of targeted conservation management on juvenile survival in a threatened population

Overall impacts of targeted conservation interventions on population growth rate (λ) will depend on within‐year and among‐year variation in exposure of target individuals to interventions, and in intervention efficacy in increasing vital rates of exposed individuals. Juvenile survival is one key vital rate that commonly varies substantially within and among years, and consequently drives variation in λ. However, within‐year, among‐year and overall impacts of targeted interventions on population‐wide survival probabilities of potentially mobile juveniles are rarely quantified, precluding full evaluation and evidence‐based refinement of interventions. We applied multi‐state mark–recapture models to 8 years of ring–resighting data from a threatened red‐billed chough Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax population to quantify within‐year and among‐year variation in juvenile exposure to a targeted intervention of supplementary feeding and parasite treatment, and to estimate efficacy in increasing juvenile survival probability. We then combined and up‐scaled these estimated effects to evaluate the impact of the 8‐year intervention on overall population‐wide survival probability and resulting population size. High proportions of surviving juveniles (>70%) were exposed to the intervention across the annual biological cycle in all years. Exposure was associated with higher short‐term survival probabilities through the full annual cycle. Consequently, management increased estimated population‐wide annual juvenile survival by approximately 0.14. However, such effects were only evident in cohorts with low overall annual survival. Population models projected that these impacts on annual juvenile survival substantially reduced population decline, such that population size at the end of the 8‐year intervention was approximately double that without management. Synthesis and applications. Our results show how complex patterns of within‐year and among‐year variation in exposure and efficacy of targeted conservation interventions can arise and scale up to affect population‐level outcomes. We demonstrate overall positive effects of a joint supplementary feeding and parasite treatment intervention on the focal chough population, but also highlight potential routes to improve efficacy, for example, through more precise targeting of interventions and agricultural management actions in the context of among‐year variation in environmental conditions.