Conservation Science and Practice最新文献

Invasive species distributions and ecological impacts in natural ecosystems have been broadly studied, but invasive species urban distributions and impacts on human populations warrant further investigation. Urban areas are highly disturbed environments at high risk of invasion by non-native species, and urban infrastructure can influence the dispersal and abundance of invasive species. Furthermore, in areas with concentrated human populations, invasive species may pose a risk to human as well as native biota. Here, we examine (1) how high-traffic roadways and the presence of suitable habitat influence buffelgrass abundance in residential areas and (2) whether buffelgrass differentially invades residential areas across socioeconomic levels and racial diversity indices in Tucson, Arizona. We found that, within residential areas, the presence of vacant lots was positively associated with buffelgrass abundance; however, there was no relationship between other suitable habitat types and buffelgrass abundance. We found no relationship between road type and buffelgrass abundance in residential areas. We found that lower-income communities were more likely to be invaded by buffelgrass, but there was no relationship between racial diversity index and buffelgrass abundance. Understanding drivers of invasive species presence and abundance in urban areas is necessary to inform urban management strategies to prevent spread to surrounding wildlands.

Applying scientific evidence to conservation, environmental management, and policy-making improves outcomes. When synthesizing existing evidence, substantial resources are required to access and read scientific publications and extract and analyze decision-relevant information. To improve this process, we developed a free, publicly available, web-based evidence entry form tailored to extract information about cause-effect relationships from ecological publications. The form enables storage, retrieval, reuse, and visualization of qualitative and quantitative ecological and environmental evidence extracted from publications. Evidence can be analyzed for a wide range of synthesis purposes (e.g., causal assessments, hypothesis testing) and approaches (e.g., rapid reviews, meta-analyses). The database schema underlying the form logically relates information about (a) a publication, (b) its experimental design(s), and (c) reported cause-effect relationships. An ontology of controlled terminology enables consistent extraction and characterization of causes and effects across users, facilitating evidence reuse. Future capabilities include customization of terminology and incorporation of study quality information.

Species conservation is generally linked to a wide variety of threats, which might sometimes reflect changes in socioeconomic standards and policies. Here, we demonstrated how treefrog conservation is related to diet preferences, rice agriculture, and international rice trade policies. While rice has been a staple food for over 1000s of years in Korea, recent human-related developments and changes in diet, strengthened by national and international agricultural policies, have resulted in a decrease in rice consumption in the nation. As a result, two treefrog species (Dryophytes suweonensis and Dryophytes flaviventris) restricted to rice paddies for breeding are severely declining due to habitat loss, and they are now under threat of extinction. The efforts of the government to boost rice consumption might support the conservation of the species, although the long-term availability of breeding sites is uncertain, and ultimately, some of the agricultural wetlands should become protected and progressively transformed into functional natural wetlands.

Wild pig has one of the widest geographic distributions of terrestrial mammals. Dog-assisted wild pig hunting may reduce crop raiding but also elevates the potential disease transmission from dogs to wildlife and vice versa. On Sumatra, game hunting tends to focus on wild pig, where hunters either actively use dogs or firearms, or passively use snares. Our objectives are to understand: (1) the extent of active and passive wild pig hunting in Sumatra; (2) dog-assisted hunting practices; (3) potential disease transmission by hunting dogs to game. We conducted three types of data collection to cover the wide range of hunting techniques: (1) information from social media (i.e., Facebook) about dog-assisted wild pig hunting events in West Sumatra; (2) a questionnaire-guided survey among hunters around the Batanghari Protected Forest, West Sumatra; (3) expert interviews from provincial conservation offices about wild pig hunting practices in Sumatra. Active and passive wild pig hunting occurred in Sumatra. Firearm and snare hunting occurred in all eight provinces while dog-assisted hunting occurred only in six provinces. We documented at least 1331 dog-assisted wild pig hunting events which occurred in 2019 across the province of West Sumatra. The number of hunting parties and dog-assisted hunting group members on Facebook showed a dramatic increase between 2020 and 2022. Many dogs used for hunting are reportedly not vaccinated (35%), risking transmission of diseases like Rabies and Canine Distemper Virus to game and wild predators. Hunting is inadequately regulated, rendering enforcement of these regulations impossible. The extent of wild pig hunting has yet been unquantified but likely will have strong effects on the remaining wildlife populations. We call for proper quantification of hunting bags, and regulation, including the use and health status of dogs, to prevent disease transmission from dogs to wild animals and to protect remaining wildlife populations.

Accurate estimation of population parameters for imperiled wildlife is crucial for effective conservation decision-making. Population density is commonly used for monitoring imperiled species across space and time, and spatial capture–recapture (SCR) models can produce unbiased density estimates. However, many imperiled species are restricted to fragmented remnant habitats in landscapes severely modified by humans, which can alter animal space use in ways that violate typical SCR model assumptions, possibly cryptically biasing density estimates and misinforming conservation actions. Using data from a two-year camera-trapping survey in the Central Pacific Coast region, Mexico, we demonstrate the potential importance to endangered jaguar (Panthera onca) conservation of considering non-circular home ranges when estimating population density with SCR. Strong evidence existed that jaguars had elliptical home ranges wherein movements primarily occurred along linearly arranged coastal habitats that the camera array aligned with. Accounting for this movement with the SCR anisotropic detection function transformation, density estimates were 30%–32% higher than estimates from standard SCR models that assumed circular home ranges. Given much of suitable jaguar habitat in Mexico is fragmented and linearly oriented along coastlines and mountain ranges, accommodating irregular space use in SCR may be critical for obtaining reliable density estimates to inform effective jaguar conservation.

Given widespread biodiversity declines, there is an urgent need to ensure that conservation interventions are working. Yet, evidence regarding the effectiveness of conservation actions is often lacking. Using a case study of 209 terrestrial species listed as Endangered in Canada, we conducted a literature review to collate the evidence base on conservation actions to: (1) explore the outcomes of actions documented for each species and (2) identify knowledge gaps. Action-oriented research constituted only 2% of all peer-reviewed literature across target species, and for 61% of species, we found no literature investigating outcomes of conservation actions. Protected areas, habitat creation, artificial shelter, and alternative farming practices were broadly beneficial for most species for which these actions were assessed. Habitat restoration actions were most frequently studied, but 38% of these actions were harmful, ineffective, or demonstrated mixed results. The effectiveness of prescribed burns, alternative timber harvesting approaches, and vegetation control was examined for the greatest number of species, yet 17%–30% of these actions demonstrated negative effects. Our synthesis demonstrates a lack of published evidence for many actions implemented for the recovery of species at risk of extinction, highlighting an alarming gap in the conservation literature.

Conflict with humans, particularly over livestock predation, poses a severe and continuing threat to the conservation of large carnivores, particularly in reserve-adjacent and unprotected areas. Such conflict also inflicts substantial costs on people living alongside large carnivores. Though conflict is complex, attacks upon livestock are one of the factors that drive immediate hostility toward carnivores, inflict economic damage upon livestock-keepers, and can lead to retaliatory and preventative carnivore killing. Many conflict mitigation and livestock protection approaches exist, but it is crucial to examine their effectiveness. In this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of fortified livestock enclosures in reducing predation of livestock in an area surrounding Ruaha National Park in southern Tanzania. These fortified enclosures are built with chain-link fences and are aimed to replace the traditional enclosures built with acacia thorn branches. We implemented a before-after-control-impact (BACI) design to test the short-term impacts of the fortified enclosure intervention. We then conducted a cost–benefit analysis (CBA) based on costs of construction of fortified enclosures and benefits accruing as prevented livestock depredation. Finally, we tested the hypothesis that fortified enclosures would diminish in effectiveness over time as carnivores become habituated, the fortification deteriorates due to lack of maintenance, and/or predation risk would increase. For the long-term analysis, we used monthly data from 758 livestock-keeping households from 2010 to 2016. Across both short- and long-term analyses, fortified enclosures were effective at reducing the odds of experiencing predation of livestock by carnivores by 94% and 60%, respectively. Based on mean predation rates (c. 0.10 livestock month) and observed reductions, the benefit/cost ratios over 5 years of construction of a fortified enclosure with metal or wooden poles are 3.36 and 7.89, respectively, when subsidized. Our study contributes actionable evidence on the impact of an intervention to inform conservation strategies supporting human–carnivore coexistence.

Despite their relevance for anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity, synergistic effects are rarely considered in conservation science or management. However, the implementation of single agri-environment measures may limit their potential benefits for biodiversity since species often require a multitude of complementary key resources, particularly in homogeneous and structurally poor landscapes. To advance conservation management, we studied whether hedgerows promote benefits of sown wildflower fields for insectivorous bats in temperate agro-ecosystems. At 12 study sites, we simultaneously monitored bat activity and insect abundances from early to late summer at paired locations, that is, the ecotone of a sown wildflower field bordering a hedgerow and an open boundary of the same wildflower field. Particularly in early and mid-summer, we found distinct preferences of bats for the ecotone of wildflower field and hedgerow. Yet, independent of the season, neither insects nor specifically moths showed a significant preference for the ecotone. Finally, both bat activity as well as insect abundances shifted towards the ecotone when distance to the nearest forest patch was high. We showed that synergies of hedgerows and wildflower fields promote benefits of the latter for both edge- and open-space foraging bats, particularly in homogeneous and structurally poor agricultural landscapes. Therefore, successful conservation management should take advantage of synergies between complementary conservation measures at the local patch scale and at the same time, account for landscape composition and configuration.

The velocity of climate change, which estimates the migration speed necessary to maintain constant climatic conditions, is increasingly used to map climate-related threats to biodiversity. Using newly developed climate velocity data for North America to 2100 based on an ensemble of current-generation climate projections, we asked how important differing sources of uncertainty from global climate model projections are, how the magnitude of this uncertainty compares with the internal variability of the climate system, and what aspects of climate velocity are robust to such uncertainty. We found that most variation was due to contrasts among global climate models, followed by variation among alternative emissions pathways. However, correlation was great enough (0.817) to allow application of velocity to inform conservation and management. In contrast, internal variability (i.e., weather at multidecadal timescales) resulted in low correlation between simulated and observed velocity for the 2001–2020 period. A null model using current baseline climate data and assumed uniform 2° heating was moderately correlated with velocity from ensemble future projections, helping to identify model-independent velocity patterns difficult to capture via rules such as protection of elevational gradients. Such uncertainty analyses are essential for informed application of velocity and other climate exposure metrics.

As climate change accelerates, understanding which species are most vulnerable and why they are vulnerable will be vital to inform conservation action. Climate change vulnerability assessments (CCVAs) are tools to assess species' responses to climate change, detect drivers of vulnerability, and inform conservation planning. CCVAs are commonly composed of three elements: exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. Incorporating all three elements can be challenging, and including only two of the three elements may be a more feasible approach in many systems. Although two-element CCVA approaches have become more common, their utility and procedures remain poorly documented. We conducted a literature review to explore the scope, methods, and rationale of CCVAs that use a two-element approach to assess vertebrate vulnerability. Despite the potential to expand CCVAs into understudied systems, two-element assessments had similar geographic and taxonomic biases as those previously detected in CCVAs in general. Methods varied, yet we found that variables used in two-element studies could be condensed into standardized categories to enhance comparability. Finally, limitations in data availability and computational resources were common rationales for using a two-element approach. By clarifying the purposes, opportunities, and limitations of two-element assessment, this review can aid in selecting appropriate methods for CCVAs.