Conservation Science and Practice最新文献

The genus Moschus, or musk deer, is endemic to Asia and comprises seven species that live from alpine meadows to dense forests. Musk deer are renowned for producing musk, a substance highly prized in traditional medicine and perfumery, which has led to severe poaching and dramatic population declines. With global climate change, the expansion of human activities such as agriculture, road construction and illegal logging has significantly increased the destruction of musk deer habitat, further threatening the survival of these species. Legal protections, including national level I status in China and CITES Appendix I listing, have been implemented to combat poaching and support conservation, but the population status of musk deer remains precarious. For a long time, the classification of musk deer has been confusing and not clearly recognized, which is not conducive to the conservation of musk deer and the development and implementation of policy, resulting in a lack of attention to the species. This study provides a comprehensive review of the historical taxonomic and evolutionary background of musk deer and presents their current global distribution and conservation status. This work aims to enhance public understanding of these threatened species and inform ongoing conservation efforts.

Increasingly, effective conservation requires multi-stakeholder collaboration and partnerships extending beyond formal protected area boundaries to achieve institutional fit at the appropriate scale. In this paper, we present a case study from a South African biodiversity hotspot that explores the motivation and processes driving a collaborative conservation initiative across a multifunctional landscape. The case study presents the ‘how’ and ‘why’ the conservation initiative exists and persists, with leopard conservation being the catalyst for the partnership, but with positive knock-on effects for biodiversity conservation more broadly. Data were collected from interviews, surveys, and documents. Participants highlight the role of strong leadership, prior collaborative networks, a shared willingness for landscape-level collaboration, and the benefits of partnerships for biodiversity conservation, bridging the gap between public and private institutions. Scientific research was leveraged to support adaptive management, public education, and capacity building, and played a critical role in providing accurate data that can inform conservation management. Emphasized in this case are shared learning, knowledge sharing, and capacity building, ensuring the sustainability of conservation activities and supporting adaptive conservation actions that influence broader conservation efforts at larger scales.

At the forefront of invasive alien species (IAS) control, information gaps about the latest IAS distribution can hinder the required actions of local governments. In Japan, many prefectural governments still lack a list of invasive species despite the request stipulated in the Action Plan for Prevention of Damage from Alien Species enacted in 2015. Here, we examined to what extent open research-based data deposited by museums and herbaria (ORD) and community science data by volunteers (CSD) can fill the gaps. We focused on 145 plant and 38 insect species and updated their distribution maps using ORD and CSD. We identified new distributions of 106 plant invasive species among 145, and 16 insect invasive species among 38, by combining data from ORD and CSD. We also found both complementarity and shared limitations between ORD and CSD. While taxonomic biases were less pronounced in ORD, CSD provided broader prefectural coverage. However, some important taxa—particularly small insect pests—were rarely captured by either ORD or CSD, indicating a common gap. Based on these findings, we recommend mobilizing diverse data sources, promoting community science, conducting taxon-specific expert surveillance, and building local capacity to better utilize ORD and CSD in local governments.

In an era of environmental instability, climate-informed land-use planning allows preparation for a more resilient future. By identifying places with high climate-change refugia potential and climate connectivity, management and stewardship plans can be adapted over time to achieve biodiversity goals. The objective of the Climate-informed Conservation Planning project is to provide an efficient pathway for collaborative planning between Indigenous and provincial governments to develop a long-term management approach to maintain environmental and cultural values while reducing the risks from climate change. Working directly with the shíshálh-BC Modernized Land Use Planning table on the South Coast of British Columbia to support climate-resilient planning, this process identified areas projected to have refugia potential, to maximize habitat connectivity, to monitor ecosystem resilience variables, and to realize planning objectives within dynamic adaptive planning cycles. Key activities include: (a) introducing the climate-change refugia concept and other knowledge translation activities, (b) identifying and evaluating spatial priorities for conservation management with higher potential for climate-change refugia and connectivity, (c) customizing priority scenarios with additional data and local knowledge to highlight where the best conservation investments might contribute to local and provincial biodiversity goals, and (d) suggestions for implementing the plan dynamically and proactively to mitigate current and emerging environmental risks with monitoring, reporting, and proactive adaptation planning cycles.

With the majority of terrestrial land privately owned and the Earth in a biodiversity extinction crisis, it is vital to improve our understanding of biodiversity on private lands. However, documenting biodiversity on private lands is challenging due to the time and financial constraints in gaining access, hindering our understanding of the value of private lands for conservation. In recent decades, citizen science has offered a unique opportunity to obtain biodiversity data on private lands through engaging landholders and encouraging participation in biodiversity documentation. To determine the value of citizen science for biodiversity sampling on private lands and enhance our understanding of the importance of private lands, we leveraged nearly 500,000 frog occurrence records from across New South Wales, Australia, from the Australian citizen science project, FrogID. Pairing this data with land tenure data, we found that private land was relatively better sampled than public land by citizen science data, with 86% of records from private lands. Private and public lands supported moderately different biodiversity, and frog species richness was predicted to likely be higher on private land once aridity and sampling density were accounted for. Citizen science offers a novel technique to supplement biodiversity data collection by rapidly amassing occurrence data on broad scales. Private lands are essential for global biodiversity conservation, encompassing the majority of land and providing vital habitat for both threatened and non-threatened taxa.

Citizen science is a valuable tool for expanding the scope and impact of conservation research, particularly by engaging highly specialized recreators in data collection. This study focuses on rock climbers and their engagement with the citizen science organization Climbers for Bat Conservation (CBC). In this study, we investigate the perceived barriers and benefits that influence bat reporting behavior among rock climbers in Red River Gorge, Kentucky, USA. To accomplish this, we utilized a structured survey administered online and at a local climbing festival and segmented our sample into reporters, non-reporters, and potential reporters. Our research investigates how these perceived barriers and benefits relate to: (1) environmental attitudes as measured by the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale, (2) demographic characteristics, and (3) climbing experience between audience segments. We found that environmental attitudes did not vary between climbers, and that participation largely hinged upon situational and information barriers, such as not having cellular service, forgetting to report, and not understanding the online user interface. Climbers were motivated by the intrinsic value of bats, protecting climbing access, and the ecosystem roles that bats serve, particularly insect population control. These findings offer insights for targeted interventions that leverage the untapped potential of citizen science to advance wildlife conservation in traditionally inaccessible environments.

The impacts of climate change are already affecting many species and habitats, presenting challenges for species management and conservation. Protecting climate refugia—areas buffered from climate shifts where species can persist despite broader changes—has been proposed as a tool for managing species under climate change. Although many studies have mapped climate refugia, few have identified them for specific species at scales relevant to local management. To address this gap, we identified potential climate refugia for seven species of concern in the Pacific Northwestern United States: Cascade torrent salamander (Rhyacotriton cascadae), Rocky Mountain tailed frog (Ascaphus montanus), coastal tailed frog (Ascaphus truei), Greater Sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), pygmy rabbit (Brachylagus idahoensis), fisher (Pekania pennanti), and White-headed Woodpecker (Leuconotopicus albolarvatus). Collaborating with managers and species experts, we identified key factors influencing refugia locations and integrated multiple spatial data layers to map potential refugia for each species. For the three aquatic species, potential refugia included streams with cooler current and projected future temperatures, sustained future streamflow, and watersheds with greater canopy cover and cool valley bottoms. For the terrestrial species, refugia were linked to fire risk, ecological transformations, range shifts, soil moisture, and topographic complexity. Identifying potential refugia can guide conservation by prioritizing areas for protection and management. Sites with high-quality habitat but limited refugia potential could become conservation priorities if habitat quality declines, whereas lower-quality sites with greater refugia potential may warrant further protection. Areas with poor refugia potential may benefit from management actions to enhance resilience. Although expanding this approach to all species of concern would be valuable, it remains resource intensive. We conclude with recommendations for improving the efficiency of refugia identification in future studies.

Climate change is reshaping landscapes in ways that challenge conventional approaches to conservation and resource planning. The concept of climate-change refugia—areas with the potential to buffer species and ecosystems from the effects of climate change—offers a valuable lens for identifying strategic opportunities for long-term stewardship. Building on this foundation, we present a flexible, climate-informed approach to landscape planning that integrates climate-change exposure and refugia information into a five-step process: (1) define core ecological, cultural, and land resource values and identify those most at risk; (2) assess landscape capacity as a function of climate-change exposure and conservation capacity (i.e., landscape condition); (3) develop place-based strategies and identify relevant spatial data products; (4) incorporate macrorefugia, microrefugia, and corridors to align land-use designations with strategies; and (5) implement, monitor, and adaptively refine refugia-based planning over time. Recognizing variation in planning needs and contexts, our guidance supports the practical use of spatial refugia metrics to inform land-use, conservation, and resource management decisions.

Grasslands are globally imperiled. Centuries of intensive agriculture, anthropogenic development, woody encroachment, and the disruption of historical disturbance regimes have degraded native grasslands with wide-ranging impacts on grassland species. Exacerbating these threats, modern climate change is rapidly affecting these highly exposed systems. Grasslands are perhaps the most intensively managed ecosystem in North America; private landowners, governmental, and nonprofit agencies expend considerable resources creating and maintaining grasslands using prescribed burning, managed grazing, and mechanical restoration. Climate-change refugia are critical for climate-vulnerable species and can help buffer populations from acute and chronic climate-related stressors. Given the widespread geography of grasslands and the intensive management they require, there is untapped potential to integrate multi-scaled concepts of climate-change refugia with current grassland conservation strategies. Using declining grassland birds as a case study, we explore how the concepts of climate-change refugia, spanning from macro-scale conservation planning to microclimate management, may aid in the conservation and management of climate-vulnerable grassland species.