Summary

1. Changes in natural patterns of animal behaviour and physiology resulting from anthropogenic disturbance

may alter the conservation status of a population if they affect the ability of individuals to survive, breed or grow.

However, information to forecast population-level consequences of such changes is often lacking.

2. We developed an interim framework to assess the population consequences of disturbance when empirical

information is sparse.We show how daily effects of disturbance, which are often straightforward to estimate, can

be scaled to the disturbance duration and to multiple sources of disturbance.

3. We used expert elicitation to estimate parameters that define how changes in individual behaviour or physiology

affect vital rates and incorporated them into a stochastic population model. Model outputs can be used to

evaluate cumulative impacts of disturbance over space and time. As an example, we forecast the potential effects

of disturbance from offshore wind farm construction on the North Sea harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena)

population.

4. Synthesis and applications. The interim framework can be used to forecast the effects of disturbances from

human activities on animal populations, to assess the effectiveness of mitigation measures and to identify priority

areas for research that reduces uncertainty in population forecasts. The last two applications are likely to be

important in situations where there is a risk of unacceptable change in a species’ conservation status. The framework

should, however, be augmented with empirical data as soon as these are available.