Biological Conservation最新文献

Compassionate conservation is an ethical framework proposed to instill greater compassion for individual animals in conservation science and practice. In addition to highlighting compassion as a virtue, compassionate conservationists propose four ethical principles (first do no harm, individuals matter, inclusivity, and peaceful coexistence) to capture what it means to act compassionately in conservation. In this paper I argue for a revision of this framework. I begin by showing how compassionate conservationists also implicitly promote the virtue of respect, which better accounts for the principles individuals matter and inclusivity, yet entails a further principle: respect for autonomy. I further suggest that, to reflect genuine compassion for wild animals, the principles first, do no harm and peaceful coexistence should be replaced by empathy, understanding, and minimize harm. In the second half of the paper, I discuss the implications of this revised framework. I argue that, due to the prevalence of suffering even in well-conserved ecosystems, compassion and respect motivate a more active management of natural environments in order to reduce the harms (natural and anthropogenic) that wild animals face. This reveals a greater need for discussions on how to balance the flourishing of wild animals against the preservation of biodiversity, as well as a need to identify new approaches to conservation which better promote both ends.

We report a new threat to conservation, namely land grabs by large tourism developers inside public protected areas. Locally, these tourism land grabs damage national parks through building footprints and access corridors, bringing habitat fragmentation, noise, light, roadkill, fire risk, and invasive plant and animal species and pathogens. They also create negative impacts on social equity and regional economies. The global tourism industry now perceives private development in public national parks as a mechanism to profit from land speculation, rather than merely monopoly provision of visitor services. Investment funds now use tourism, often with socialwashing components, as a political lever for land grabs. International “nature positive” marketing by tourism industry associations and multilateral tourism advocacy organisations is greenwash: it lacks substance, and aims to coopt conservation organisations.

Conservation genetics and genomics examines the role of evolutionary and genetic processes in the persistence of organisms, and its research is intended to inform biodiversity management. To characterize the fields within the discipline and map their trends over time and across the globe, we used text analysis to synthesize the peer-reviewed literature (n = 36,159). We then searched for reference to this literature in government documents to determine the frequency with which research was referenced. We found dramatic shifts in research topics associated with the advent of next generation sequencing, including the emergence of environmental DNA analyses. However, we also found a lag in the uptake of these methods, leaving markers such as microsatellites still widely used. Most research was undertaken in higher-income countries, while research involving lower-income countries was typically conducted though collaboration with higher-income countries. Although the number of peer-reviewed publications in the field has increased rapidly, the number referenced in biodiversity management documents has not, instead plateauing at ~10 % of publications since 2010. This suggests a growing disconnect between genomic research and its application. Similar topics attracted both academic citations and mentions in “on-the-ground” documentation, although some of the topics with increasing prevalence in research, such as genomic technologies, appeared less frequently in practice. Promoting co-design and long-term collaboration, rather than post hoc translation of research to application, could provide a more direct pathway for integration between research and governments by ensuring that the research is embraced by, and relevant to, stakeholders and on the ground conservation actions.

Translocations are an increasingly popular conservation tool, although their use to date has been largely reactive, often attempting to stave off the extinction of threatened species. Recently, a more proactive concept of ‘wildlife restoration’ has been proposed, involving regular, short-distance, community-driven translocations of common but patchily distributed species within agricultural and urban landscapes. We trialled this concept by carrying out experimental translocations of two agamid lizard species from the Little Desert National Park in south-eastern Australia, where they are abundant, to fragments of similar habitat in the adjacent agricultural landscape, where they were absent, or occurring in low numbers. Study animals were monitored via radio-telemetry to assess survival, body condition, site fidelity, activity area, movement and microhabitat use of hard-release and soft-release animals compared to control animals. Survival was generally high over the monitoring period (up to 64 days) with only six (16 %) confirmed deaths and was similar between translocation treatments. Body condition, site fidelity, activity area, movement rate, and microhabitat use were similar between translocated and control animals. Lizards subjected to temporary pens (soft-release) exhibited similar outcomes to those released immediately (hard-release). While the assessment of breeding and population establishment necessitates long-term monitoring, our short-term findings highlight the resilience of translocated reptiles, supporting the notion that ‘mainstreaming’ fauna translocations could be a viable and effective conservation intervention.

Stressors affecting ecosystems can simultaneously impact ecological communities. Energy development and woody encroachment are two stressors that often occur concurrently but are rarely investigated together. We investigated changes in grassland and shrubland bird abundance in response to oil and gas development and woody plant cover in the Eagle Ford Shale of Texas in the south-central United States, an area that has experienced intensive oil and gas development in the 21st century. We used a multi-species distance sampling model to estimate abundance and community-level effects of energy development. We estimated both the magnitude and spatial scale of effect of each covariate on the grassland and shrubland bird community simultaneously within the same modeling framework. Oil and gas well pads had negative effects on all species abundances and these effects extended no greater than 1–2 km into the landscape. Oil and gas pipelines, however, had universally positive effects that extended up to 6 km into the landscape, likely because of ground cover management associated with installing and maintaining pipelines. The effect of woody cover was variable among species and extended 1–4 km into the landscape. Woody effects on individual species also varied among ecoregions, although this was likely a consequence of low woody density in some ecoregions. The varying spatial scales at which energy development and woody cover influenced abundance suggests that stressors are impacting different biological processes. Our results indicate that ecoregion-specific monitoring and inference is needed to accurately predict the impacts of environmental stressors on ecological communities.

Land use changes represent one of the leading causes of terrestrial biodiversity loss, particularly in tropical ecosystems. In Brazil, a country that encompasses six distinct biomes and one of the world's highest ant diversities, the increasing land use changes are having detrimental effects on biodiversity. Our aim in this study was to summarize the impact of land use changes on ants in Brazil through a systematic review. We adhered to the PRISMA Eco-Evo methodology and conducted a qualitative review of studies, as well as a meta-analysis focusing on ant species richness and abundance. Especially, we observe a more pronounced negative effect in more contrasting conversions, such as from tropical forest to open anthropogenic land uses. We associate the decrease in richness with drastic changes in the vegetation structure. Consequently, this leads to extreme temperature variations, reduced humidity, and a decline in both the variety and quantity of food resources and nesting sites. Our findings provide a foundation for the conservation and management of anthropogenic land uses in human-impacted regions. More specifically, we highlight that future management plans should aim for anthropogenic land uses that more closely resemble the original natural vegetation, to maintain conditions and increase resource availability for biodiversity in the new habitats. Additionally, avoiding intensive management practices, such as the use of fertilizers and pesticides in agricultural systems, can also support the conservation of entomofauna in terms of species richness and abundance, and potentially benefit ecosystem services.

Water is a limiting and important resource for large herbivores in arid and semi-arid ecosystems. Consequently, provision of artificial water is often used to alleviate limited surface water during dry periods. When foraging, large carnivores benefit from herbivore aggregation around water sources. Large carnivore attraction to areas of high water and prey availability is likely to affect smaller carnivores at these sites through competitive interactions. Here, we explore the effect of water management on the structure and the asymmetric interactions of an African carnivore community using data from camera trapping surveys. We used a functional approach based on four ranks driven by species body size (rank 1: African lions, spotted hyaenas; rank 2: leopards, African wild dogs, brown hyaenas, cheetahs; rank 3: African civets, black-backed and side striped jackals, caracals, honey badgers, servals; rank 4: African wildcats, large spotted genets, striped polecats, mongoose species), and performed multispecies occupancy models and activity pattern analyses. Results show that distance to water influences rank marginal occupancy probabilities with first- and third-ranked species more likely to use sites closer to water while we observed the opposite for second- and fourth-ranked species. However, while marginal occupancy patterns could suggest spatial avoidance, conditional occupancy of a given rank depending on another shows a constant and positive effect of the presence of a higher rank on conditional occupancy of its subordinate rank. Additionally, activity pattern analyses showed some shifts in peaks of activity in some subordinate ranks, although independent from water availability. This work shows that provision of artificial water contributes to shaping the structure of carnivore communities, and we encourage managers to account for these findings. Specifically, ensuring heterogeneity in the distances to waterholes across the landscape will favour a higher diversity of carnivores at the landscape scale.

Conservation of estuaries is strengthened by an understanding of past and current estuary extent, which helps stakeholders envision resilient estuarine habitats in the future. We used spatial analyses to improve understanding of estuarine habitat and extent in and around 30 US National Estuarine Research Reserves using two approaches, elevation-based mapping and historical mapping. We collaborated with stakeholders to incorporate local knowledge, and found that our methodologies were effective across disparate geographies. Elevation-based mapping proved to be a powerful tool for mapping areas within reach of tides, yielding a better understanding of the past, present, and potential estuary. This approach revealed that US estuaries are or were bigger – often vastly so – than what is shown in most maps. In particular, at over 80 % of studied estuaries, elevation-based mapping detected temperate forested tidal wetlands missed by maps generated primarily from aerial photographs. Historical mapping, conducted consistently across diverse regions, provided a valuable window into past ecological conditions. Our change analysis using historical maps revealed that tidal marsh has undergone dramatic losses on the Pacific coast (average > 60 % loss). On other US coasts, tidal marsh extent has changed less (average < 10 % loss), with marsh losses offset by landward migration; however, marsh migration may have caused net loss of vegetated tidal wetlands due to loss of forested tidal wetlands. Comparing mapping methods revealed important changes that could not be detected using a single method. Each mapping approach had limitations, so combining multiple methods will enhance understanding of both past and present conditions at estuaries worldwide.

Appropriately monitoring vulnerable species is essential for resource management decision-making. We used two different metrics (occupancy and acoustic activity) to evaluate population trends of North American bats susceptible to a fungal disease and compared the outcomes of these two analyses. Our dataset consisted of passive acoustic survey data collected at nine U.S. national parks in the Great Lakes region between 2016 and 2020. Our focal species were little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus), northern long-eared bat (Myotis septentrionalis), tricolored bat (Perimyotis subflavus), and big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus). Combining acoustic detection data with site-specific and environmental covariates, we developed park- and species-specific models of occupancy (use) and acoustic activity. For little brown, northern long-eared, and tricolored bats, probability of use declined 20 % and activity declined 66 %, on average. For big brown bat, probability of use decreased 9 % and activity increased 17 %. Our results showed that use of space and level of activity were not predicted by the same covariates but were positively related. We also found probability of use could remain high while activity decreased to relatively low levels. Although we observed precipitous declines in activity rates of three species, they were still using a high proportion of the landscape. We conclude that analyzing activity provides different but complementary information to analyzing species' use of space. The two metrics vary on different temporal and spatial scales and have different biases. Appropriate choice of which parameter to analyze is crucial, as different parameters may lead to different ecological conclusions, thus affecting how management decisions are made and how species conservation and recovery efforts are implemented.

Large marine protected areas (MPAs) will likely multiply worldwide to address accelerating biodiversity loss. Coral reefs are an especially at-risk ecosystem, but our understanding of whether and how large MPAs will benefit reef recovery from disturbances remains limited. Here, we evaluate how fishes influence coral reef recovery and if there are cascading trophic interactions in the fish community that influence recovery. We combine i) a meta-analysis of previous research evaluating how fishes affect coral reef succession, ii) field surveys of sharks, fishes, and benthic cover, and iii) a 2.5-year coral recruitment experiment of caged, uncaged, and partially caged settlement tiles in a remote and large MPA, in the Chagos Archipelago. In both our meta-analysis and field experiment, we found variable effects of fishes on coral recruitment with no overall significant effect, but strong control by fishes on the developing benthic communities, where fishes promote crustose coralline algae and reduce macroalgae. Within the Chagos, fishes had a positive effect on corals in protected microhabitats but a negative effect on exposed surfaces, leading to an overall neutral effect from fishes. Although mesopredatory fish abundance was negatively correlated with shark abundance, these top-down effects did not cascade down the food web through herbivores and corallivores to coral recruitment and benthic succession. Thus, our results suggest that within this large MPA, herbivores are important in limiting algae during recovery and there are compensatory responses to the loss of benthic feeding fishes and sharks, with implications for coral reef persistence in the face of global change.