Conservation Biology最新文献

Conservation, monitoring, and research networks, or collections of ecological research sites unified under a common mission of data collection or a research mission, are essential infrastructure for understanding large landscapes. However, most networks developed opportunistically over decades rather than through systematic design, creating potential limitations in the ability to address conservation challenges across entire regions. We developed a framework to evaluate how well an existing research network represents the environmental conditions its members study and devised an approach to rank sites of priority for strategic expansion. Our approach measures performance through environmental representativeness, geographic coverage, and adequacy for scientific inference and thus optimizes limited monitoring resources to maximize scientific impact. We demonstrated this approach with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service Experimental Forests and Ranges Network (EFRN), a 79-site network across the United States that grew opportunistically over a century. At the national scale, the network effectively captured high-biomass forests important for carbon cycle research; 82% of forest biomass was in well-represented areas. Some areas in Texas, Florida, the Rocky Mountains, and the West Coast had no relevant EFRN sites, which limits the ability to make regional inferences. A fundamental challenge for the EFRN was that sites improving regional extent coverage sometimes provided minimal national benefits, which can create conflicts between local and global priorities. Adding the highest-ranked candidate site provided a relevant site for 17% of currently poorly represented 1-km pixel cells nationally, but regional and national site rankings varied considerably due to nested spatial inference. This framework provides quantitative tools for strategic infrastructure decision-making, ensures that limited monitoring resources maximize conservation impact, and can be applied broadly to address the widespread challenge of optimizing conservation and monitoring networks worldwide.

In the western United States, conservation practitioners are increasingly working with private landowners to restore habitat for North American beavers (Castor canadensis) and to use nonlethal mitigation techniques when beavers damage crops and infrastructure. Effective communication is critical for promoting coexistence, yet on-the-ground conservation messaging seldom links to behavior change theories. We conducted 23 semistructured interviews with practitioners to examine the approaches they used to communicate with private landowners about beaver coexistence in Oregon (USA). Although we did not set out to interview practitioners about their messages targeting capability, opportunity, and motivation (elements of the COM-B model of behavior), we used the COM-B model to synthesize the primary dimensions of practitioners' complex, real-world communication about human-wildlife coexistence. We found that practitioners used multiple communication channels to listen for and respond to landowners' capability, opportunity, and motivation. They tailored messages to affirm and enhance knowledge and skills, identify and address site-specific and social contexts, and align beaver impacts with landowner goals. Our findings suggest the COM-B model can go beyond guiding audience analysis and behavioral intervention design to help practitioners tailor real-time communication with landowners about coexistence behavior. The model, based on our use of COM-B to analyze existing communication, could be used to provide practitioners with techniques for making sense of their existing communication efforts, for identifying gaps, and for dynamically tailoring their communication.

Despite the crucial role of human impacts on biodiversity loss, many assessments of this loss focus on single metrics, such as species richness, and overlook the multidimensional effects of human activities. Because of its importance to ecosystem functioning, we investigated the functional diversity of medium- and large-sized mammal assemblages in protected and unprotected mountain forests in the Hengduan Mountains of southwest China. We hypothesized that anthropogenic pressures outside protected areas (PAs) favor generalist species and lead to functionally homogenized assemblages compared with assemblages inside PAs. Using generalized dissimilarity models, we also examined the key drivers shaping patterns of functional β diversity in these landscapes. Outside PAs, functional richness was markedly lower, trait space was significantly more homogeneous, and nestedness β diversity was more prevalent (57.6%) than inside PAs, clear indications of functional homogenization. Anthropogenic variables consistently outweighed environmental gradients and spatial distance in explaining variation in functional β diversity. Our results demonstrate that anthropogenic pressure affects trait composition in ways that species counts alone do not fully capture, emphasizing the importance of conservation strategies that protect both functional integrity and taxonomic diversity.

Human-elephant conflict (HEC) frequently results in human and elephant mortality, posing major social justice and conservation concerns across Asia and Africa. Although a variety of interventions have been introduced to mitigate HEC, rigorous evaluations of how they affect mortality are practically nonexistent. Using a 20-year dataset from Sonitpur district in Assam, India, we examined whether organized guarding and short-distance drives-which are used to manage HEC in several countries globally-led to a reduction in human and elephant mortality from conflict as intended. We controlled for changes in land use and economic development, spillover effects, and nonrandom selection of villages for intervention. Results on whether organized guarding provided protection against human death due to HEC were inconclusive. Contrary to expectations, the intervention was associated with an approximate 2.0-2.9 times increase in elephant mortality. Disaggregation based on cause of mortality suggested that elephants may be more likely to be killed accidentally in villages where organized guarding occurs. Data on crop damage by elephants were not available, and it is possible that antidepredation squads present a trade-off that fosters greater crop protection at the expense of occasional elephant mortality. Our results highlight the indispensability of rigorous evaluations for finding solutions to human-wildlife conflict.

Groundwaters sustain diverse surface ecosystems and are populated by metazoan species, mostly invertebrates, that provide fundamental ecological functions and are often of prominent conservation value due to narrow endemism and high phylogenetic rarity. Taking advantage of an open-access, Europe-wide, and expert-curated dataset (EGCop) that includes thousands of occurrence records of obligate groundwater-dwelling copepods, we assessed the taxonomic diversity of these groundwater crustaceans in European protected areas. We calculated species richness and beta diversity of copepods in 10 × 10-km cells of the European Biogeographical Regions map. We used statistical matching to select a set of protected and unprotected cells that were comparable in terms of climatic conditions, groundwater habitat diversity, topographic heterogeneity, and glacial history. We compared species richness and beta diversity with protection level and environmental covariates through generalized linear models (GLMs), gradient boosting models (GBMs), and generalized dissimilarity models (GDMs). We also fitted these ecological models with the prematching datasets to analyze diversity patterns regardless of protection level. Species richness was primarily explained by average temperature (bio_10) and precipitation (bio_18) of the warmest quarter in GLMs. Extent of highly productive fissured aquifers had a relatively high percent importance score (up to 30%) in GBMs, which was similar to the score for climatic predictors. Coverage by protected areas contributed practically nothing to species richness in both GLMs and GBMs. Similarly, between-site taxonomic dissimilarity was not consistently higher in protected than in unprotected areas and was only partially explained by environmental variables and geographic distance in GDMs. Of the 517 analyzed species, 205 occurred only in unprotected cells. Our results highlight the need to advance research on groundwater ecosystems and implement targeted conservation actions, including revising protected area boundaries to better encompass karst regions and subterranean biodiversity.

Polarization between groups can undermine durable conservation outcomes. Activating group identities (i.e., an individual's sense of self derived from membership in a group) can exacerbate differences, especially when people hold inaccurate perceptions of their peers and rivals. In conservation contexts, the dynamism of identity and its varying influence on attitudes and outcomes is underexplored. We conducted 2 randomly controlled experiments among residents of U.S. states with wolves (n = 2296) to investigate these dynamics in a conservation context. Results from Study 1 showed group identity activation (political identity, specifically) and inaccurate metaperceptions distorted attitudes toward gray wolves (Canis lupus) and deepened differences between people. Results from Study 2 showed a simple in-group metaperception correction attenuated this effect by reducing assumptions of polarization and limiting the effects of identity fusion. These results demonstrate the opportunity for conservation policy makers and practitioners to avoid activating identities assumed to be associated with conflict and instead counter false narratives that exaggerate division. Correcting inaccurate metaperceptions and designing identity-informed communication strategies may help bolster support for conservation goals and reduce avoidable conflict.

Normally diffuse animals may group together in patches to facilitate reproduction and enhance survival in the ocean. However, consideration of spatial patchiness is not common in management frameworks, which often use mean abundances instead. Animals, such as queen conch (Aliger gigas), that congregate in patches at high density are often heavily harvested, resulting in overexploitation. To better understand the drivers of spatial heterogeneity in conch distributions, we used biologgers to quantify movement behavior, including activity rates, environmental effects, and short-term dispersal. We used the resulting values to model conch dispersal in breeding areas. Distance to next encounter analyses described how much space separated patches of conch, where a patch is any area containing conch. Results of field surveys were combined with conch dispersal estimates to compute the frequency of occurrence of patches, patch length, and population density of conch in patches across hundreds of kilometers. Most conch occurred in aggregations, defined as patches with multiple conch. Most surveys in areas with fishing pressure were devoid of conch and conch aggregations, reinforcing that mean population density can be a misleading management indicator. However, behavior provides an alternative context to inform conch management because patch sizes and conch density in aggregations where reproductive activity was observed were consistent in our study area. Breeding aggregations rarely occurred in patches longer than 330 m and thus often occupied areas small enough to be managed by local governance, suggesting small-scale spatial interventions offer a pathway to conservation for patchily distributed species. Our species-specific results suggest the minimum space needed to protect an aggregation and underscore the versatility of using movement ecology to inform conservation.

Recognition and engagement of Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IP&LCs) and other traditional knowledge (TK) holders in formal biodiversity governance remain limited, despite their significant contribution to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity through their knowledge, innovations, practices, and land stewardship. We conducted the first global assessment of how the 195 countries that ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity self-report on this contribution based on a full content analysis of all of the 2 most recent national reports (NR5 and NR6). The number of countries self-reporting IP&LC and TK roles in the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity increased between the 2 reporting periods and exceeded 55% for NR6. The mention of IP&LC and TK contribution to cultivation and domestication was slightly higher; 59% of countries provided evidence of recognition of this contribution in their NR6. Reference to the holders themselves was much lower, even in the case of cultivation and domestication, and explicit evidence of IP&LC involvement in reporting was minimal, particularly in developed countries. Several reports, particularly European submissions, mentioned traditional land use or community-based practices but considered addressing IP&LCs and TK irrelevant due to terminology confusion. Ahead of the next reporting (NR7), due in 2026, and in line with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which recognizes IP&LCs and TK as integral to its goals, we urge governments to strengthen engagement with IP&LCs and other TK holders, develop and respect partnerships that incorporate their knowledge, practices, and rights, support IP&LC-led conservation, and build on these partnerships in monitoring and reporting on national progress. We aimed to support this process with short-term practical recommendations for upcoming reporting and longer-term strategic guidance and a dataset of illustrative quotes from the analyzed national reports as examples of good practice.

Wildlife reintroductions are socioecological processes entailing the intentional movement of organisms by people. In animal reintroductions, there is growing recognition of the importance of human dimensions and efforts to integrate these into reintroduction projects. To conceptually reframe reintroductions as processes of renewed coexistence (a coadaptive process through which sustainable human-wildlife interactions [HWIs] are fostered), we build upon existing understanding of HWIs and coexistence. Our conceptual framing acknowledges historical HWIs and recognizes that the reintroduced species may be new for people to coexist with today. This provides a long-term, futures-oriented perspective on reintroductions that goes beyond the return of an animal to fostering long-term coexistence between humans and the reintroduced animal. This requires integration of social understandings and meaningful involvement of people from the outset and throughout feasibility, planning, and implementation. Further, we provide fresh insight on the subsequent transition phase by recognizing there to be a period where humans and reintroduced animals continue to coadapt as the situation transitions from a reintroduction project into a long-term coexistence between humans and wild animals.

Many central concepts of conservation biology-such as nativeness-are structured by ecological and social factors. However, the social consequences of using these concepts to make conservation decisions remain inadequately understood. Some researchers argue that nativeness, rather than acting as an objective proxy for important ecological relationships, may instead mask social and cultural values about which species belong in a given ecosystem. Yet, even as many non-native species decline, experts often prioritize the conservation of native species. We assessed the perceptions of people (n = 600) in Metro Vancouver, Canada, regarding local declines of native and non-native birds. We measured ecological grief (feelings of loss associated with ecological changes) and loss of cultural ecosystem service (nonmaterial benefits people derive from relationships with nature) associated with documented declines in 2 native and 2 non-native birds. We measured variations in perceptions across differences in nature experiences and sociodemographics. We used a 2-treatment experimental design in which we informed only half the participants about species' nativeness. Perceptions of loss differed among respondents based on their familiarity with birds, experiences with birds, and the native status of the bird. However, the effect of nativeness on feelings of loss was not moderated by ecological knowledge, whether a respondent was an urbanite, or experiences with birds. Instead, race was the strongest moderator of the effect of nativeness on feelings of loss. Only White people reported greater grief for declines in native species than non-native species, even when accounting for education, income, and other variables. Although native status may often be a useful heuristic for inference, relying on it for conservation decision-making may have unintended sociodemographic and equity consequences. Our results also demonstrate how pairing ecological grief and cultural ecosystem service questions with documented ecological declines can elucidate human-nature relationships, such as those between people and non-native birds.