The understanding of the demographic and ecological mechanisms of population regulation is central in applied ecology, in particular when it comes to managing harvested populations. We document the density dependence of the reproductive success in French grey partridge Perdix perdix populations. We used long‐term data collected by the national network monitoring populations with a mere surveillance objective. We investigated a time series spanning 7–14 years for 85 replicate populations by a combined procedure of a regression of reproductive success against density for each population and a metaanalysis of the 85 regression slopes. We avoided two common statistical pitfalls by taking the autocorrelation in time series data into account and by using independent estimates of reproductive success and spring density. The relationship is statistically significant for 10% of the populations, and the meta‐analysis of the 85 replicates displays a highly significant pattern (82.3% of the regression slopes being negative). Thus our results both support the existence of a density dependent reproductive success in the grey partridge and moderate the ubiquity of the phenomenon, despite a general trend. We tested whether density dependence occurred through competition or habitat heterogeneity by examining the relationship between the variability of per capita reproductive success and pair density. Our results support both alternative hypotheses depending upon the area of concern. In terms of population and habitat management our findings have implications for hunting interests. The best strategy to maximise the hunting quota when reproductive success is depressed with increased density recommends intermediate values of both pair density and reproductive success, which conciliates hunting interests and conservation objectives. To alleviate density dependence, habitat management should supply limited resources that are homogeneously distributed in space when density dependence operates through competition, and should improve habitat quality of the poorest patches when density dependence operates through habitat heterogeneity.

We used data on breeding bird communities of the oases of southern Tunisia to investigate variation in species richness and composition among local communities in relation to spatial configuration of the oasis system and to assess significance of the relationship between oasis size and local richness. Oases could be grouped into three regional systems, namely littoral, saharan, and mountainous oases. We found that at the scale of the entire oasis system, species richness and species composition exhibited significant spatial autocorrelation. That result was consistent with our prediction that the particular spatial organization of oases may have led to regional differences in availability of potential colonizers and that higher species exchange within oasis zones than among oasis zones may have played an important role in shaping local communities. With regard to the species–area relationship, we thus found that a model accounting for spatial covariance was more parsimonious than a standard regres... RESUMÉ Dans ce travail nous présentons une analyse de données sur la richesse et la composition spécifiques des peuplements d'oiseaux nicheurs d'un échantillon d'oasis des trois principales régions oasiennes de Tunisie (oasis littorales, oasis de piémont et oasis sahariennes). L'objectif est d'examiner le rôle de la configuration spatiale du système d'oasis dans la détermination de la diversité locale et de tester la relation entre la richesse spécifique locale et la superficie de l'oasis. Nous trouvons qu’à l’échelle de tout le système oasien, la richesse et la composition spécifiques montrent une autocorrélation spatiale significative. Ceci suggère que la configuration spatiale particulière du système d'oasis ait conditionné des différences entre les pools régionaux de colonisateurs potentiels, et que la plus grande probabilité d’échange d'espèces entre peuplements locaux au sein d'un même groupe régional d'oasis qu'entre oasis de groupes régionaux différents ait joué un rôle important dans le façonneme...