Conservation Biology最新文献

Amphibian declines, linked to climate change and disease, pose a global challenge, yet their primary drivers remain debated. We investigated the historical decline of Brazilian amphibians by assessing the influence of climate change, extreme weather events, and the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd). Our analysis encompassed 90 amphibian species over more than a century (1900-2014). We integrated historical climate data-including El Niño anomalies and Southern Hemisphere temperature records-with documented extreme weather events and amphibian population trends. We used Granger causality tests to assess the potential of various factors to forecast anuran population declines and extinctions in Brazil and structural equation models to evaluate the relationships between the variables of interest. We identified gradual climate change and extreme weather events, particularly El Niño-driven temperature anomalies, as the primary drivers of amphibian population declines in Brazil. The structural equation models supported these findings and showed that climate-driven stressors significantly contribute to population crashes and increase Bd infections. However, Bd infections peaked years after population declines, suggesting that the fungus acts as an opportunistic pathogen rather than a primary driver of amphibian losses in Brazil. These findings challenge the prevailing view that Bd is the main cause of declines, instead highlighting climate anomalies and extreme weather events as the predominant factors.

In an age of anthropogenically driven species loss and increasingly novel ecosystems, ecosystem engineer restoration is a process-based approach to supporting ecosystem function. Many ecosystem engineers have low or declining population sizes. When feasibility and costs impede reintroduction of ecosystem engineers, an alternative may be artificial mimicry of ecosystem engineer structures. Research on mimicry of autogenetic ecosystem engineers, whose physical structure shapes habitat availability and complexity (e.g., tropical corals whose hard skeletons create complex reefs that provide habitat), spans many process scales. However, mimicry of allogenic ecosystem engineers, which shape habitat availability through their behavior (e.g., beavers building dams that influence hydrology), is less well explored. We reviewed the literature to examine the efficacy of artificial mimicry of allogenic ecosystem engineers and gaps in the research. Emerging findings suggest that artificial mimicry could restore physical processes, support focal species, alter biological communities, deliver benefits to landowners and ecosystems, and promote population recovery. However, some studies document the potential for unintended negative consequences for ecosystem engineers or species that use engineered structures or respond to environmental cues produced by engineered structures. Topics requiring additional research include assessing the efficacy of artificial structures as compared with natural structures, evaluating the scalability and cost-effectiveness of mimicry projects, and investigating the potential for unintended consequences with mimicked structures.

The designation of critical habitat for the conservation of threatened species has long been recognized in the environmental legislation of different countries. However, translating vague legislation about critical habitat into practical real-world designation remains challenging because of its sensitivity to many context- and species-specific criteria and assumptions. We explored how spatial prioritization tools can help navigate such challenges and explicitly address sensitivities. Using a case study on the endangered little bustard (Tetrax tetrax) in Spain and the spatial prioritization tool Marxan, we tested and compared different critical habitat spatial designs across a series of scenarios for the little bustard at the national level. The scenarios accounted for habitat availability requirements over the species' annual cycle, the species' representativeness across the territory, the spatial connectivity of its habitat and populations, and potential cost constraints. This approach allowed us to quantify the sensitivity of critical habitat designations to how these criteria are quantified and integrated. Considering unoccupied habitat as critical habitat for the species generated larger, more spatially aggregated solutions that would likely be harder to implement than scenarios focusing conservation efforts on currently occupied habitat only. Considering the species' extirpation risks at individual planning units as a constraint to management success generated completely different solutions than scenarios assuming homogeneous extirpation risk across the landscape. The overall connectivity of identified critical habitats across the entire study area was double in scenarios that accounted for extirpation risk in individual planning units than that in scenarios that held extirpation risk constant across all units. Our approach, based on freely available software, can help guide conservation efforts by identifying new critical areas that maximize the effectiveness of conservation actions and can be used to assess the sensitivity and uncertainty of critical habitat designation to different criteria.

Increasingly, conservation professionals and scholars recognize the need for more holistic integration of social science in fish and wildlife management. This call is often framed around the complexity of 21st century conservation challenges and changing societal values toward fish and wildlife and its management. Fish and wildlife management agencies must engage with conservation social sciences to proactively address pressing conservation challenges, such as climate change, habitat degradation, wildfire, and biodiversity loss, and to identify, understand, and be responsive to changing societal needs, interests, and preferences. However, little data exist on fish and wildlife organizations’ abilities to address and effectively incorporate social science information into decision-making processes, policy, or practice. We examined how social science is conducted, supported, and integrated in state and federal fish and wildlife agencies in the United States and the barriers that might stymie successful integration. We surveyed social scientists working in these organizations through an online questionnaire. Although most state and federal social scientists believed social science information is important to their agency, support (e.g., adequate funding, staffing, professional development opportunities) was limited and barriers (i.e., knowledge, capacity, institutional, and ideological) stymied successful integration. To increase support and minimize barriers to integration, we recommend increasing or reallocating funds to hire social scientists to meet agency needs, clearly communicating the importance of conservation social science to staff, providing or funding social science training for all staff, and incorporating social science research methods and best practices in agency decision-making, planning, and policy efforts. Implementing the aforementioned strategies can improve agencies’ abilities to address complex conservation challenges and ensure agencies meet their public trust responsibilities through increased application of social science in fish and wildlife organizations.

Social objectives for conservation have expanded beyond consideration of material costs and benefits to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ rights, the importance of their full and effective participation, and the contribution of customary institutions and plural knowledge systems. Social impact assessment can help conservation professionals understand how social principles are reflected in practice and inform governance improvements. We reviewed the peer-reviewed and gray literature describing methodological approaches and their application to social impact assessments in conservation. We investigated whether the methodologies used empirically are advancing to reflect contemporary social objectives, in particular around rights, procedural justice, and recognition of identities and knowledge. In our initial review of methodological papers, we identified two interrelated themes that can drive high-quality social impact assessment: incorporation of the perspectives, knowledge systems and participation of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and the completeness and appropriateness of methodological approaches adopted. We categorized these themes into principles of good practice (e.g., local participation and disaggregated social analyses) and used them to analyze empirical social impact assessments and explore the extent to which they were applied. Empirical studies tended not to reflect expanded social objectives or methodological advancements. Few studies covered multiple domains of social impact, disaggregated results by social group, involved Indigenous Peoples and local communities, or presented a clear and informed methodological approach and strategy for use of mixed methods. To improve the quality of social impact assessments commensurate with the needs and social standards associated with conservation in the time of the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the equitable involvement of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in any assessment; the establishment of clear, appropriate, and complete methodological approaches; and the integration of social impact assessments into governance processes are essential.

We investigated intimidation of conservation social scientists, which is ongoing and aimed at silencing or discrediting research findings. Although social scientists share with conservation biologists the desire to understand and address the biodiversity crisis, their analysis of structural power relations and contradictions in conservation is sometimes not appreciated. Intimidation can take place before and during fieldwork, during the publication process, and after publication in academic and public spheres. We examined our diverse experiences of intimidation, including legal threats, character assassination, physical threats, job exclusion, and curtailment of academic freedom. Diverse actors, including national research granting bodies, international policy makers, donors, ethics bodies, and conservation biologists and organizations, may target research that does not align with their political, economic, financial, and ideological interests. We refer to intimidating practices to suppress or alter unwelcome perspectives or research findings as epistemological violence. Tactics of epistemological violence relate to structural, systemic, symbolic, discursive, and material violence and have significant implications for understanding and improving long-term conservation. Epistemological violence can impede the progress, effectiveness, and social justness of conservation and suppress critical or differently informed perspectives crucial for a well-functioning academia. Intimidation hampers crucial collaborations among disciplines and with societal partners. Epistemological violence has detrimental consequences for affected individuals, the broader conservation community, people living in or near conservation areas, and conservation achievements.

Since 2000, the field of biodiversity conservation has been reckoning with the historical lack of effective engagement with the social sciences in parallel with rapid declines in biodiversity and escalating concerns regarding socioecological justice exacerbated by many common conservation practices. As a result, there is now wide recognition among scholars and practitioners of the importance of understanding and engaging human dimensions in conservation practice. Developing and applying theoretical and practical knowledge related to the social sciences, therefore, should be a priority for people working in biodiversity conservation. We considered the training needs for the next generation of conservation social science professionals by surveying conservation professionals working in multiple sectors. Based on 119 responses, the 3 most cited soft skills (i.e., nontechnical abilities that facilitate effective interpersonal interaction, collaboration, and adaptability in diverse contexts) were cultural awareness and the ability to understand the values and perspectives of others, people management and conflict resolution skills, and the ability to develop and maintain inter- and intraorganizational networks and working relationships. The 3 most cited technical skills were expertise in behavior change expertise, expertise in government and policy, and general critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Overall, we found that current conservation social scientists believe students and early career conservationists should prioritize soft skills rather than technical skills to be effective. These skills were also correlated with the skills considered hardest to acquire through on-the-job training. We suggest early career conservationists develop essential soft and technical skills, including cultural awareness, networking, critical thinking, and statistical analysis tailored to sectoral and regional needs.

Addressing global environmental conservation problems requires rapidly translating natural and conservation social science evidence to policy-relevant information. Yet, exponential increases in scientific production combined with disciplinary differences in reporting research make interdisciplinary evidence syntheses especially challenging. Ongoing developments in natural language processing (NLP), such as large language models, machine learning (ML), and data mining, hold the promise of accelerating cross-disciplinary evidence syntheses and primary research. The evolution of ML, NLP, and artificial intelligence (AI) systems in computational science research provides new approaches to accelerate all stages of evidence synthesis in conservation social science. To show how ML, language processing, and AI can help automate and scale evidence syntheses in conservation social science, we describe methods that can automate querying the literature, process large and unstructured bodies of textual evidence, and extract parameters of interest from scientific studies. Automation can translate to other research agendas in conservation social science by categorizing and labeling data at scale, yet there are major unanswered questions about how to use hybrid AI-expert systems ethically and effectively in conservation.

Social sciences are increasingly recognized as useful for reorienting human action toward environmental conservation. Fully realizing the social sciences’ potential requires applying social science methods to conservation challenges and drawing from and building on human action theories from across the social sciences to better understand how and when actions can realize positive social and environmental priorities. We conducted an in-depth analysis of a bounded, systematically selected set of conservation science peer-reviewed articles to investigate the prevalence of social science theories of human action in conservation research and whether these theories represent the richness of the social science literature related to human action. We censused papers published in 2023 in Conservation Biology, Conservation Letters, and Biological Conservation and assessed each paper's geographic scope, social science engagement, whether it investigated human action, and weather it explicitly used human action theories and underlying metatheory (i.e., ways of understanding the world and how one gains knowledge of it). Results across 533 papers showed that 32% of papers incorporated social science and that 64% of these social science papers investigated human action. Twenty-seven percent of these human action papers used explicit human action theories. The theory of planned behavior was the most used explicit theory (17% of action theory papers). The independent self metatheory was the most prevalent; it underlies the theory of planned behavior and focuses on understanding how personal attributes, such as values, shape intentional individual behavior. The prevalence of a few theories and metatheories in these dominant conservation journals may indicate a limited capacity for conservation research to build on previous research, avoid redundant reinvention, and unmask novel applications of social science theory that could reorient human action toward conservation. Human action theory use in conservation might be broadened by changing attitudes on the importance of human action theories for research; incorporating social theory in conservation education; asking reviewers to comment on theory usage and mandating theory reporting; creating spaces for social scientists and theory scholars; providing social scientists and theorists with decision-making power in organizations; rewarding theory use; recognizing feedback loops among theory use; and replacing colonial and capitalistic approaches to conservation.