The dynamics of wild populations are governed by demographic rates which vary spatially and/or temporally in response to environmental conditions. Conservation actions for widespread but declining populations could potentially exploit this variation to target locations (or years) in which rates are low, but only if consistent spatial or temporal variation in demographic rates occurs. Using long-term demographic data for wild birds across Europe, we show that productivity tends to vary between sites (consistently across years), while survival rates tend to vary between years (consistently across sites), and that spatial synchrony is more common in survival than productivity. Identifying the conditions associated with low demographic rates could therefore facilitate spatially targeted actions to improve productivity or (less feasibly) forecasting and temporally targeting actions to boost survival. Decomposing spatio-temporal variation in demography can thus be a powerful tool for informing conservation policy and for revealing appropriate scales for actions to influence demographic rates.

Bird Ringing Centre National Museum Hornoměcholupská 34 CZ 10200 10 Praha Czech Republic

British Trust for Ornithology The Nunnery Thetford IP24 2PU UK

Catalan Ornithological Institute Nat Museu de Ciències Naturals de Barcelona Pl Leonardo da Vinci 4 5 08019 Barcelona Spain

Center for Macroecology Evolution and Climate Natural History Museum of Denmark University of Copenhagen Universitetsparken 15 DK 2100 Copenhagen Denmark

Department of Ornithology Aranzadi Sciences Society Zorroagagaina 11 E20014 Donostia Spain

Finnish Museum of Natural History LUOMUS P O Box 17 FI 00014 University of Helsinki Finland

School of Biological Sciences University of East Anglia Norwich Research Park Norwich NR4 7TJ UK

SEO BirdLife Ciencia Ciudadana C Melquiades Biencinto 34 28053 Madrid Spain

Swedish Museum of Natural History Bird Ringing Centre Box 50007 S 104 05 Stockholm Sweden

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10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5901244