Biodiversity and Conservation最新文献

In the absence of high-quality biodiversity data, land-use planners and conservationists often rely on biodiversity surrogates. Many studies have proposed surrogates based on assumptions about the environmental niches of species. However, the use of such assumptions is not always useful because biological processes and ecological interactions can operate at different scales due to the non-uniform geographical distribution of environmental conditions. In such cases, compositional heterogeneity across the same region can be expected but is often hidden by broad-scale environmental data. Furthermore, these assumptions may obscure important relationships between species and their environment. To elucidate this issue, we asked whether biotic interactions between two taxonomic groups are more important than other factors in reflecting the distribution of unsampled species. To do this, we compared the relationship between the distribution of bird species and the distribution of the five most-abundant palm species which are often considered indicators of bird communities. These species include Lepidocaryum tenue, Oenocarpus bataua, Oenocarpus bacaba, Mauritiella aculeata, and Attalea speciosa. Additionally, we considered environmental factors (precipitation, water-table levels, sand and clay contents) and the ecoregions along the Purus-Madeira interfluve as drivers of bird species composition. Our results show that bird-assemblage composition was strongly correlated with changes in palm-species abundance. The presence-absence data for bird-species showed that palm-species alone explained 25% and 19% of composition of all birds and only canopy birds, respectively. These palm species are abundant and can be easily identified and monitored by non-specialists, such as citizen scientists. Citizens are often involved in data acquisition but may not have the experience to sample large assemblages consisting of hundreds of species; thus, these five most-abundant palms species could serve as a cost-effective and efficient biodiversity surrogate for birds.

Indonesia is the global coral reef restoration leader by number of projects, yet these remain diverse and disparate. This study reviews the status of Indonesian coral reef restoration within a framework of international common best practice (CBP) that incorporates internationally-recognised Standards for Ecological Restoration (SER). This framework is used to formulate recommendations for a formal network of reef restoration practitioners with the purview to develop and implement a national restoration roadmap. Forty-five projects were surveyed to determine how projects have been planned and implemented. This was compared with recommendations from CBP. There is particular scope to increase quantitative data collection, reinforce community involvement, improve ecological data collection, and standardise monitoring protocols. While 84% of projects reported quantifiable goals, 64% did not quantify goals during planning and 61% did not incorporate climate-smart design features. Quantitative reef monitoring surveys were absent in 22% of projects. The majority of projects did not quantify important ecological metrics like coral community composition/diversity (96%), coral health/bleaching (89%), benthic community (62%), and coral survival (62%). Indonesia has the capacity, regulations, and networks to position itself as a reef restoration driver in the Coral Triangle region; this will require increased coordination, alignment, and quantification of restoration. A structured, collaborative, and iterative national network of various stakeholders would facilitate the development of a national restoration roadmap based on adaptive management strategies. This would aid in standardising project planning, monitoring, and reporting. Efforts should include an increased focus on climate change adaptation goals.

As a reintroduction progresses through the establishment, growth, and regulation phases, density-dependent mechanisms increasingly drive population dynamics. This can complicate efforts to reinforce these populations if the translocated individuals (henceforth reinforcers) are excluded, or existing residents become displaced. This is especially pertinent for islands and fenced havens, where immigration is often only possible by translocation. Conspecific associations offer insights into how these density-dependent mechanisms manifest in space and time. We investigated how movement, habitat use, and conspecific associations differed between eastern quoll (Dasyurus viverrinus) residents and reinforcers at a conservation-fenced haven. We used GPS collars to quantify distances travelled per night, home and core ranges, nocturnal (activity) and diurnal (denning) habitat use and preference, and conspecific associations over three periods: baseline (residents only, days 3–21), release (both cohorts, days 22–32), and settlement (reinforcers only, days 33–52) for ≤ 42 days post-release (depending on GPS unit longevity). Eastern quolls travelled greater mean distances per night (< 2.15 km, x̄ 1.75 km) and had larger home ranges (< 251 ha, x̄ 178 ha) during the release period. Reinforcers had larger home ranges (249 ha) and greater overlap with other collared eastern quolls (115 ha) when compared to residents (range 90 ha, overlap 46 ha). We found a significant preference for grassland habitat across all animals and periods. During the settlement period, we found a preference for nocturnal activity in greater understory and south-west facing aspects, and lower movement correlation, sociality, and den sharing between collared eastern quolls. Finally, we found lower den sharing in reinforcers (29%) compared to residents (52%), and for fawn- animals compared to dark-morphs. Our results revealed short-term movements, habitat use, and conspecific associations at a greater spatiotemporal resolution than has ever been achieved for this species. Our findings offer important insights into the importance of appropriate habitat and conspecific cueing for reintroductions, and highlight the need to monitor density-dependent mechanisms to inform adaptive management to promote positive outcomes for both initial reintroductions and reinforcements.

Transitional vegetation zones in the neotropics harbor high biodiversity and are threatened by advancing deforestation and climate change. Besides, the diversity patterns at multiple spatial scales are little understood. We investigated the woody flora of eight savanna sites over 700 km along the transition zone between the Cerrado and Amazonia. We assessed plant diversity at three spatial scales: alpha (α = local richness), beta (β_Jac = Jaccard mean dissimilarity of species composition between sites), and gamma (γ = regional diversity). We also measured the sites’ contribution to beta diversity (LCBD) to unveil the ecological singularity of the transition. We found high local richness (α = ∼80 species per hectare) and high between-site dissimilarity (β_Jac = 0.651; LCBD = 0.354), which together contributed to high regional diversity (γ = 167). There was no relationship between floristic composition and proximity between sites or proximity to Amazonia. The locally dominant species (representing 80% or more of the total abundance) also differed across sites, indicating the unique composition of each community. This high floristic diversity at different spatial scales is severely threatened by extensive deforestation in recent decades and a paucity of protected areas, stressing the need for protected areas and conservation actions.

Arthropod decline has been globally and locally documented, yet they are still not sufficiently protected. Crete (Greece), a Mediterranean biodiversity hotspot, is a continental island renowned for its diverse geology, ecosystems and endemicity of flora and fauna, with continuous research on its Arthropod fauna dating back to the nineteenth century. Here we investigate the conservation status of the Cretan Arthropods using Preliminary Automated Conservation Assessments (PACA) and the overlap of Cretan Arthropod distributions with the Natura 2000 protected areas. Moreover, we investigate their endemicity hotspots and propose candidate Key Biodiversity Areas. In order to perform these analyses, we assembled occurrences of the endemic Arthropods in Crete located in the collections of the Natural History Museum of Crete together with literature data. These assessments resulted in 75% of endemic Arthropods as potentially or likely threatened. The hotspots of endemic taxa and the candidate Key Biodiversity Areas are distributed mostly on the mountainous areas where the Natura 2000 protected areas have great coverage. Yet human activities have significant impact even in those areas, while some taxa are not sufficiently covered by Natura 2000. These findings call for countermeasures and conservation actions to protect these insular environments, especially mountain species that lack the space to further escape from threats affecting their habitat.

Australia has lost vast areas of its natural vegetation through agriculture and urbanization, resulting in the area of suitable habitat for many Australian bird species being greatly diminished. Given the geographical and ecological biases in anthropogenic land use, the impact of habitat loss now and into the future may be disproportionately high for some species, threatening their long-term persistence. Such changes are occurring rapidly, and habitat loss needs to be monitored dynamically to prevent extinction. To monitor changes in available unmodified species habitat, we use species’ area of feeding habitat (AFH), which represents the area of habitat within a species’ range with vegetation matching their feeding requirements. We analysed the past, current and future threats of habitat modification for 467 Australian bird species by calculating AFH across three time periods: pre-colonization, current (2020), and a projected future scenario (2100). These values were used to identify species subject to substantial habitat loss due to urbanization and agriculture and delineate predictors of such losses. Most species had experienced habitat loss since colonization (n = 442, 95%), and species that had already experienced considerable habitat loss were more likely to lose habitat into the future. Species with particular habitat associations (e.g., Mallee), were also more prone to greater proportions of habitat lost. The results highlight the utility of AFH and emphasize the importance of protecting what habitat remains for the species with highly depleted geographic ranges, noting that those that have experienced the most loss of unmodified habitat are the most likely to lose more unmodified habitat under future conditions.

Despite the pernicious impacts that invasive black rats Rattus rattus have on island ecosystems, little is known about their effect upon insular reptiles, which are a highly vulnerable but pivotal element of island biota. To bring to light these effects, we evaluated the threat posed by R. rattus on the critically endangered Canarian spotted lizard Gallotia intermedia by analyzing its frequency of occurrence on rat feces, estimating rat abundance and density, and correlating these parameters with previous lizard censuses. We genetically detected that 14.96% of all rat feces contained G. intermedia, with 27.27% of individual R. rattus consuming this lizard. Rat density varied from 0.740 ± 0.474 to 2.183 ± 1.137 rats/ha and was correlated with larger declines of G. intermedia between past censuses and those of 2019. These results confirm for the first time that R. rattus consumes and impacts this endemic and endangered lizard species. From a broader perspective, this is one of the first studies detecting rat impact on a large-sized reptile, which calls for further attention to the interaction between invasive rats and a highly vulnerable but essential component of island ecosystems.

Sacred groves are natural forests that are managed by local communities to support their cultural and religious practices. These forests are often refugia to threatened species and crucial nodes of biodiversity in an increasingly human-dominated landscape. In Asia, conservation evidence of sacred groves is often geographically limited to a few overrepresented countries. Here, we present the first empirical study on the tree communities in sacred groves in Bali, Indonesia, and compare them to formally gazetted protected forests without a sacred status. Specifically, we measured the diversity, basal area and density of tree species from three ontogenetic stages (adults, saplings, and seedlings) in sacred groves and protected forests that contain Dipterocarpus hasseltii, a globally Endangered dominant canopy tree species of local cultural significance. Our results showed that sacred groves and protected forests with D. hasseltii populations had similar levels of tree species richness, diversity, and density of saplings and seedlings. The density of D. hasseltii individuals and the basal area of all species of adult trees was higher in sacred groves than in protected forests, potentially due to culturally-driven active protection of D. hasseltii and large, old trees in the sacred groves. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that local community’s involvement in forest governance had a positive impact on biodiversity conservation that was comparable to protected forests. Despite sacred groves being invaluable localities for in-situ conservation of threatened tree species, incorporation into existing protected area network could diminish the autonomy and traditions of the local communities. Therefore, our study provides crucial evidence of the circumstances under which customary forests balanced both natural resource use and biodiversity conservation. This lends support to Indonesia’s forest decentralization policies through which local communities can maintain stewardship over biodiversity-rich customary forests.

Harbor seals, Phoca vitulina, play a critical role in regulating the biodiversity of coastal ecosystems in the North Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. We conducted a preliminary ecological study of harbor seals in Casco Bay, Maine using SealNet, a newly developed facial recognition software. We captured images of seals on nine haul-out sites to create a database of 768 seals in Middle Bay. We used photo ID techniques with facial recognition technology to record the location of individuals at each haul-out site. We calculated a range of 9% site fidelity to the Middle Bay inlet across years and 25% and 36% seasonal site fidelity to haul-out sites within 2020 and 2021, respectively. Preliminary estimates of the local seal abundance within Middle Bay ranged from 1562 (single haul-out site) to 2533 seals (across sites and years). In addition, our results suggest that the number of seals at haul-out sites is greatest from two hours before low tide to two hours after low tide and during high cloud cover conditions. We found no significant impacts of water or air temperature, level of boat traffic, or wind speed on haul-out site abundance. Our study supports the use of facial recognition technology as an effective method to monitor dynamic coastal species. The aim of future research will focus on a more systematic, longitudinal study design to monitor specific haul-out sites with the aim of providing more extensive connectivity data between sites and more refined estimates of site fidelity, turnover, and population size.

Understanding the effects of long-term habitat fragmentation on functional diversity and trait distributions is fundamental for effective conservation plans. In this study, we investigated the functional diversity and trait-environment relationships of phyllostomid bats in an Amazonian forest-savannah mosaic. Bats were captured across ten forest fragments, 11 savannahs, and five continuous forest sampling sites. We assessed the effect of habitat type using taxonomic and functional α-diversity and functional uniqueness at the community-level. We evaluated the relationships between functional traits, environmental characteristics, and species distribution using RLQ and fourth-corner analyses. Furthermore, we estimated the contribution of “richness change” and “replacement” components among habitats using functional β-diversity. Forested habitats (forest fragments and continuous forest) retained more diverse functional assemblages compared to savannahs, with a greater abundance of species with unique traits, such as the gleaning insectivorous bats (e.g., Gardnerycteris crenulatum, Lophostoma silvicola, Tonatia maresi). Functional β-diversity between forest fragments and savannah was driven significantly by the replacement of traits, indicating the substitution of species that perform different ecological functions in these habitats. Our study highlights the importance of the forest-savannah mosaic for maintaining bat assemblage functional diversity and their associated ecosystem services.