Multi-Action Planning for Threat Management: A Novel Approach for the Spatial Prioritization of Conservation Actions

Planning for the remediation of multiple threats is crucial to ensure the long term persistence of biodiversity. Limited conservation budgets require prioritizing which management actions to implement and where. Systematic conservation planning traditionally assumes that all the threats in priority sites are abated (fixed prioritization approach). However, abating only the threats affecting the species of conservation concerns may be more cost-effective. This requires prioritizing individual actions independently within the same site (independent prioritization approach), which has received limited attention so far. We developed an action prioritization algorithm that prioritizes multiple alternative actions within the same site. We used simulated annealing to find the combination of actions that remediate threats to species at the minimum cost. Our algorithm also accounts for the importance of selecting actions in sites connected through the river network (i.e., connectivity). We applied our algorithm to prioritize actions to address threats to freshwater fish species in the Mitchell River catchment, northern Australia. We compared how the efficiency of the independent and fixed prioritization approach varied as the importance of connectivity increased. Our independent prioritization approach delivered more efficient solutions than the fixed prioritization approach, particularly when the importance of achieving connectivity was high. By spatially prioritizing the specific actions necessary to remediate the threats affecting the target species, our approach can aid cost-effective habitat restoration and land-use planning. It is also particularly suited to solving resource allocation problems, where consideration of spatial design is important, such as prioritizing conservation efforts for highly mobile species, species facing climate change-driven range shifts, or minimizing the risk of threats spreading across different realms.     

Impediments to taxonomy and users of taxonomy: accessibility and impact evaluation

There has been much discussion of the “taxonomic impediment”. This phrase confuses two kinds of impediment: an impediment to end users imposed by lack of reliable information; and impediments to taxonomy itself, which vary from insufficient funding to low citation rates of taxonomic monographs. In order to resolve both these types of impediment, taxonomy needs to be revitalized through funding and training taxonomists, as well as investing in taxonomic revisions and monographs rather than technological surrogates such as DNA barcoding.
© The Willi Hennig Society 2011.     

The Lord Howe Island Biodiversity Management Plan: An integrated approach to recovery planning

Summary   The Lord Howe Island Biodiversity Management Plan targeted significant species for the Lord Howe Island Group and formed the recovery plan for 30 threatened species and one endangered ecological community. The plan addressed threats and management actions relevant to the Lord Howe Island Group's overall biodiversity, with a particular focus on rare and significant species and communities. The Biodiversity Management Plan approach enabled holistic and cost-effective planning for the management of biodiversity on Lord Howe Island. We describe the approach, as applied to Lord Howe Island, including the utilization of expert and community knowledge, species research data and GIS innovations.     

Prioritising research efforts for effective species conservation: a review of 145 years of koala research

相似文献   

Not all management is equal: a comparison of methods to increase wood turtle population viability

Management generally targets the most tractable life stage to rescue declining populations; however, that stage may not have the largest influence on recovery. Freshwater turtles are declining globally and early stages are frequently targeted for management, although the effectiveness of these actions on population growth are relatively unknown because of incomplete demographic data. We estimated the hatchling yearly survival rate for a freshwater turtle in the field using in situ enclosures to collect missing demographic information. We used these data to develop demographic models to calculate growth rate for a hypothetical, declining population of wood turtles (Glyptemys insculpta) in Wisconsin, USA, 2014–2019. We modeled growth for populations across a range of scenarios from no management to combinations of nest protection and head-starting at varying levels of effort. Nest protection alone did not increase population growth rate, while head-starting alone increased population growth by 0.07, with the largest increase in growth rate, 0.11, resulting from combinations of both approaches. No combination of nest protection and head-starting, without an increase in adult survival rate from the observed 0.88 to ≥0.95, led to population stabilization or increase. Populations of freshwater turtles, like the wood turtle, will likely only recover with a multi-faceted approach that targets multiple life stages simultaneously.     

Conserving biodiversity efficiently: what to do, where, and when

Conservation priority-setting schemes have not yet combined geographic priorities with a framework that can guide the allocation of funds among alternate conservation actions that address specific threats. We develop such a framework, and apply it to 17 of the world's 39 Mediterranean ecoregions. This framework offers an improvement over approaches that only focus on land purchase or species richness and do not account for threats. We discover that one could protect many more plant and vertebrate species by investing in a sequence of conservation actions targeted towards specific threats, such as invasive species control, land acquisition, and off-reserve management, than by relying solely on acquiring land for protected areas. Applying this new framework will ensure investment in actions that provide the most cost-effective outcomes for biodiversity conservation. This will help to minimise the misallocation of scarce conservation resources.     

Quantifying the impacts of bushfire on populations of wild koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus): Insights from the 2019/20 fire season

The impact of bushfire events on wild Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) populations is poorly understood. Following the 2019/2020 bushfire season in eastern Australia, we resurveyed 123 field sites for which contemporaneous (current koala generation) pre‐fire survey data were available. Field sites were distributed across six fire grounds between Foster and Ballina on the north coast of New South Wales. At these sites, pre‐fire naïve occupancy levels by koalas ranged from 25% to 71% of the sampled habitat, while post‐fire naïve occupancy levels ranged from 0% to 47%. The median reduction in the naïve occupancy rate by koalas when considered across all six fire grounds was 71% when standardized against pre‐fire occupancy levels. Field data provided strong corroboration between site‐based, post‐fire foliage canopy cover estimates and modelled Google Earth Engine Burnt Area Map (GEEBAM) fire‐severity categories. In terms of GEEBAM fire‐severity categories, koala survival was five times more likely in areas where forest canopies were modelled as Unburnt or Partially burnt, compared to areas where forest canopies were Fully burnt. The capacity of bushfire‐affected koala populations to recover from the 2019/20 fire season will be conditional upon size of the original population in each fire‐affected area, the enactment and implementation of supportive, recovery‐themed management regimes, future inter‐fire intervals and associated intensities. Management actions necessary to assist recovery actions are discussed.     

Current threats faced by amphibian populations in the southern cone of South America

In this work, we update and increase knowledge on the severity and extent of threats affecting 57 populations of 46 amphibian species from Chile and Argentina in southern South America. We analyzed the intrinsic conservation problems that directly impact these populations. We shared a questionnaire among specialists on threats affecting target amphibian populations with information on i) range, ii) historical occurrence and abundance, iii) population trends, iv) local extinctions, v) threats, and vi) ongoing and necessary conservation/research. We assessed association patterns between reported threats and population trends using multiple correspondence analysis. Since 2010, 25 of 57 populations have declined, while 16 experienced local extinctions. These populations were affected by 81% of the threat categories analyzed, with those related to agricultural activities and/or habitat modifications being the most frequently reported. Invasive species, emerging diseases, and activities related to grazing, ranching, or farming were the threats most associated with population declines. Low connectivity was the most frequent intrinsic conservation problem affecting 68% of the target populations, followed by low population numbers, affecting 60%. Ongoing monitoring activity was conducted in 32 (56%) populations and was the most frequent research activity. Threat mitigation was reported in 27 (47%) populations and was the most frequent ongoing management activity. We found that habitat management is ongoing in 5 (9%) populations. At least 44% of the amphibian populations surveyed in Chile and Argentina are declining. More information related to the effect of management actions to restore habitats, recover populations, and eliminate threats such as invasive species is urgently needed to reverse the conservation crisis facing amphibians in this Neotropical region.     

Starling foraging success in relation to agricultural land-use

Changes in agricultural land-use have been suggested to contribute to the decline of several bird species through negative effects on their food supply during breeding. One important change in land-use has been loss of pastures, especially permanent pastures. In this study we investigated how different forms of agricultural land-use affected foraging success of a declining bird species, the European starling Sturnus vulgaris . We let caged starlings forage in different forms of agricultural fields and determined time spent foraging and foraging success. The starlings' activity level (time spent actively foraging) as well as the number of prey caught per time unit was strongly related to the abundance of prey in soil samples. Also the body mass change during the experiment was positively related to activity level and prey capture rate. We found consistent differences in foraging variables between habitats. In spring sown grain starlings were least active and found fewer prey items at a lower rate than in any other habitat. The other three habitats differed less, but in general mowed hay fields appeared slightly more valuable than the cultivated and natural pastures. We did not find any differences between natural and cultivated pastures in foraging variables. Thus, starling foraging success is higher in grass-covered fields than in cultivated fields, but the management of the grass-covered fields mattered less. The results are consistent with starlings having higher population densities and breeding success in areas with higher availability of pasture. We suggest that the physical structure of the habitat (sward height) and moisture may be additional variables that need to be taken into account to explain starling breeding density and success in the agricultural landscape.     

What to do in the face of multiple threats? Incorporating dependencies within a return on investment framework for conservation

Aim Our study aimed to determine priority areas for conservation investment with explicit consideration of the impacts of multiple threatening processes, and the dependencies that exist between actions required to abate these threats. Location Australia. Methods We analysed the return on investment for two different management actions aimed at reducing the impact of invasive species on the native fauna and flora of Australia. We focussed on the management of the European red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) at two spatial scales: across 72 biogeographic regions of Australia and within one high‐priority biogeographic region. We considered each action independently and also explicitly accounted for the option of an integrated fox and rabbit management action. We accounted for the spatial distributions of the threatened species within our analysis and determined how this refined spatial information influenced both the priority areas and the timing of this investment. Results Integrated fox and rabbit management was identified as a higher priority than singular threat abatement in most bioregions, whereas rabbit control alone was the most frequent priority if dependencies between actions were ignored. At the regional scale, funding was entirely directed to integrated action when seven or more species within the priority region were impacted by more than one threat. The total allocation of funding and timing of initial investment remained relatively insensitive to differences in the spatial overlap of species distributions. Main conclusions Our findings indicate that prioritizing conservation actions without explicit consideration of the impacts of multiple threats can reduce the cost‐effectiveness of investments. The benefits expected from investment in abating one threat alone may be overestimated where other processes continue to threaten species persistence. We conclude that future attention should be directed to refining our understanding of the cost‐efficiencies delivered through integrated actions and institutional mechanisms to achieve their delivery.     

Identifying historical and future global change drivers that place species recovery at risk

Ecosystem management in the face of global change requires understanding how co-occurring threats affect species and communities. Such an understanding allows for effective management strategies to be identified and implemented. An important component of this is differentiating between factors that are within (e.g. invasive predators) or outside (e.g. drought, large wildfires) of a local manager's control. In the global biodiversity hotspot of south-western Australia, small- and medium-sized mammal species are severely affected by anthropogenic threats and environmental disturbances, including invasive predators, fire, and declining rainfall. However, the relative importance of different drivers has not been quantified. We used data from a long-term monitoring program to fit Bayesian state-space models that estimated spatial and temporal changes in the relative abundance of four threatened mammal species: the woylie (Bettongia penicillata), chuditch (Dasyurus geoffroii), koomal (Trichosurus vulpecula) and quenda (Isoodon fusciventor). We then use Bayesian structural equation modelling to identify the direct and indirect drivers of population changes, and scenario analysis to forecast population responses to future environmental change. We found that habitat loss or conversion and reduced primary productivity (caused by rainfall declines) had greater effects on species' spatial and temporal population change than the range of fire and invasive predator (the red fox Vulpes vulpes) management actions observed in the study area. Scenario analysis revealed that a greater extent of severe fire and further rainfall declines predicted under climate change, operating in concert are likely to further reduce the abundance of these species, but may be mitigated partially by invasive predator control. Considering both historical and future drivers of population change is necessary to identify the factors that risk species recovery. Given that both anthropogenic pressures and environmental disturbances can undermine conservation efforts, managers must consider how the relative benefit of conservation actions will be shaped by ongoing global change.     

A Vulnerability Assessment of 300 Species in Florida: Threats from Sea Level Rise,Land Use,and Climate Change

Species face many threats, including accelerated climate change, sea level rise, and conversion and degradation of habitat from human land uses. Vulnerability assessments and prioritization protocols have been proposed to assess these threats, often in combination with information such as species rarity; ecological, evolutionary or economic value; and likelihood of success. Nevertheless, few vulnerability assessments or prioritization protocols simultaneously account for multiple threats or conservation values. We applied a novel vulnerability assessment tool, the Standardized Index of Vulnerability and Value, to assess the conservation priority of 300 species of plants and animals in Florida given projections of climate change, human land-use patterns, and sea level rise by the year 2100. We account for multiple sources of uncertainty and prioritize species under five different systems of value, ranging from a primary emphasis on vulnerability to threats to an emphasis on metrics of conservation value such as phylogenetic distinctiveness. Our results reveal remarkable consistency in the prioritization of species across different conservation value systems. Species of high priority include the Miami blue butterfly (Cyclargus thomasi bethunebakeri), Key tree cactus (Pilosocereus robinii), Florida duskywing butterfly (Ephyriades brunnea floridensis), and Key deer (Odocoileus virginianus clavium). We also identify sources of uncertainty and the types of life history information consistently missing across taxonomic groups. This study characterizes the vulnerabilities to major threats of a broad swath of Florida’s biodiversity and provides a system for prioritizing conservation efforts that is quantitative, flexible, and free from hidden value judgments.     

Using the IUCN Red List to determine effective conservation strategies

Threatened species lists continue to grow while the world’s governments fail to meet biodiversity conservation goals. Clearly, we are failing in our attempts to conserve biodiversity. Yet 37 mammal species genuinely improved in status in the 2009 IUCN Red List, suggesting there are ways to successfully conserve biodiversity. Here, I compare the threats and conservation actions (proposed and implemented) by the expert assessors of the Red List of improving species to a further 144 declining mammal species to determine whether specific threats were more easily remedied, and whether certain conservation actions were more successful than others. Declining species were faced with different threatening processes to mammals improving in status suggesting some threats were easier to treat (e.g. hunting) than others (climate change, invasive species). Declining species had different proposed and implemented conservation actions than improving species suggesting some actions are more successful than others. Threatened species were invariably found in conservation areas, suggesting protected area creation alone is not an overly successful strategy for species at risk of extinction. Conservation actions were more frequently implemented for improving than declining species suggesting active conservation is effective in improving the status of biodiversity. There were significant differences between proposed and implemented conservation actions suggesting some actions are easier to implement than others. Reintroduction, captive breeding and hunting restriction were more effective in conserving mammals than site creation and invasive species control. These findings highlight effective conservation actions for mammals worldwide and allow the rationalisation of threat mitigation measures to ensure economically justifiable biodiversity conservation strategies.     

Anti-Predator Behavior of Vancouver Island Marmots: Using Congeners to Evaluate Abilities of a Critically Endangered Mammal

Behavioral comparisons between endangered species and their congeners may provide valuable data with which to test ideas about declining populations or the future direction of recovery efforts. We considered the case of the highly endangered Vancouver Island marmot ( Marmota vancouverensis ). Predation is a current source of mortality, and inadequate anti-predator behavior could have profound ramifications for the future success of re-introductions. We tested whether M. vancouverensis anti-predator behavior was unusual or 'deficient' by quantifying it and comparing it to 13 other marmot species. We found no evidence that Vancouver Island marmots were unwary. If anything, the converse was true. Vancouver Island marmots were responsive and vigilant towards real and simulated predatory threats. They dug numerous escape burrows that reduced the likelihood of predation. Our results have several implications for future recovery efforts, one of which was to establish 'baseline' flight-response targets that captive-bred Vancouver Island marmots will have to meet or exceed prior to release into predator-rich environments.     

Vertebrate browsing impacts in a threatened montane plant community and implications for management

Montane ecosystems are vulnerable to the removal of vegetation cover through browsing by feral or native vertebrate fauna. The highest elevated peaks of the Stirling Range in Western Australia provide habitat for an endemic plant community, Critically Endangered due to plant disease, frequent fire and an emerging threat of browsing by vertebrate fauna. Survey and camera trapping confirmed the herbivorous feral Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) and native Quokka (Setonix brachyurus) are present. Dietary analysis through faecal examination revealed contrasting diets and implicates native rather than feral species as responsible for impacts on dicotyledonous species, and in particular those of conservation significance. Exclosure experiments conducted over 1 year revealed significant changes in abundance, cover and height of perennial herbs and an increase in growth and/or reproduction of four threatened endemic plants. Detrimental impacts caused by native browsing fauna are not unprecedented and may be attributed to disequilibria in ecosystem processes due to multiple interacting threats. Montane ecosystems may be particularly vulnerable to browsing due to their naturally slow recovery after disturbance and browsing may also create environmental conditions more conducive to plant disease. For plant species with critically low population numbers, the impact of browsing poses a threat to population persistence and undermines investment into other conservation recovery actions. For effective management, it is critical to determine the relative impact of browsing species present. Where native species are implicated, the physical protection of high value assets in wire exclosures is warranted to complement other recovery actions and ensure effective species and community recovery.     

An investigation into the similarities and differences governing the cryopreservation success of koala (Phascolarctos cinereus: goldfuss) and common wombat (Vombatus ursinus: shaw) spermatozoa

The aim of this study was to determine the relative cryopreservation success of koala and wombat spermatozoa and to investigate reasons for their respective post-thaw survival by examining the sperm's response to a range of osmotic media and determining the presence and distribution of F-actin. An hypothesis was proposed that F-actin may be imparting a degree of structural inflexibility to the koala sperm plasma membrane; hence, exposure of spermatozoa to cytochalasin D (5 microM), a F-actin depolymerisation agent, should result in increased plasticisation of the membrane and greater tolerance of cell volume changes that typically occur during cryopreservation. In experiment 1, koala (n = 4) and wombat (n = 4) spermatozoa packaged in 0.25 mL straws were cryopreserved using two freezing rates (fast-3 cm above liquid N2 interface; slow-6 degrees C/min in a freezing chamber) and two glycerol concentrations (8 and 14% v/v) in a tris-citrate glucose buffer with 15% (v/v) egg yolk. Wombat spermatozoa showed better (P < 0.01) post-thaw survival (% motile, % intact plasma membranes, % decondensed sperm heads) than koala spermatozoa. When exposed to media of varying osmolality, koala spermatozoa were less tolerant (% intact plasma membrane) of hyper-osmotic conditions (920 and 1410 mOsmol/kg) than wombat spermatozoa. F-actin was localised using a monoclonal antibody but only found in the wombat sperm head. When koala and wombat spermatozoa were exposed to media of varying osmolality, cytochalasin D had no beneficial effect on sperm survival (% intact plasma membranes). This study has demonstrated that wombat spermatozoa are highly tolerant of cryopreservation when compared to koala sperm but that spermatozoa from both species show greatest post-thaw survival when frozen slowly in 14% glycerol. Koala sperm are also particularly susceptible to hyper-osmotic environments but lack of detectable F-actin in the koala spermatozoan suggests that poor cryopreservation success in this species is unlikely to be associated with F-actin induced plasma membrane inflexibility.     

Models as tools for understanding past,recent and future changes in large lakes

Large lakes currently exhibit ecosystem responses to environmental changes such as climate and land use changes, nutrient loading, toxic contaminants, hydrological modifications and invasive species. These sources have impacted lake ecosystems over a number of years in various combinations and often in a spatially heterogeneous pattern. At the same time, many different kinds of mathematical models have been developed to help to understand ecosystem processes and improve cost-effective management. Here, the advantages and limitations of models and sources of uncertainty will be discussed. From these considerations and in view of the multiple environmental pressures, the following emerging issues still have to be met in order to improve the understanding of ecosystem function and management of large lakes: (1) the inclusion of thresholds and points-of-no-return; (2) construction of general models to simulate biogeochemical processes for a large number of lakes rather than for individual systems; (3) improvement of the understanding of spatio-temporal variability to quantify biogeochemical fluxes accurately; and (4) inclusion of biogeochemical linkages between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in model approaches to assess the effects of external environmental pressures such as land-use changes. The inclusion of the above-mentioned issues would substantially improve models as tools for the scientific understanding and cost-effective management of large lakes that are subject to multiple environmental pressures in a changing future.     

Threatened and Endangered Subspecies with Vulnerable Ecological Traits Also Have High Susceptibility to Sea Level Rise and Habitat Fragmentation

The presence of multiple interacting threats to biodiversity and the increasing rate of species extinction make it critical to prioritize management efforts on species and communities that maximize conservation success. We implemented a multi-step approach that coupled vulnerability assessments evaluating threats to Florida taxa such as climate change, sea-level rise, and habitat fragmentation with in-depth literature surveys of taxon-specific ecological traits. The vulnerability, adaptive capacity, and ecological traits of 12 threatened and endangered subspecies were compared to non-listed subspecies of the same parent species. Overall, the threatened and endangered subspecies showed high vulnerability and low adaptive capacity, in particular to sea level rise and habitat fragmentation. They also exhibited larger home ranges and greater dispersal limitation compared to non-endangered subspecies, which may inhibit their ability to track changing climate in fragmented landscapes. There was evidence for lower reproductive capacity in some of the threatened or endangered taxa, but not for most. Taxa located in the Florida Keys or in other low coastal areas were most vulnerable to sea level rise, and also showed low levels of adaptive capacity, indicating they may have a lower probability of conservation success. Our analysis of at-risk subspecies and closely related non-endangered subspecies demonstrates that ecological traits help to explain observed differences in vulnerability and adaptive capacity. This study points to the importance of assessing the relative contributions of multiple threats and evaluating conservation value at the species (or subspecies) level when resources are limited and several factors affect conservation success.     

Translocation of overabundant species: Implications for translocated individuals

Effective management of overabundant animal populations is a difficult challenge for wildlife managers around the globe. Translocation is often considered a viable management tool, whereby individual animals are removed from areas of high population density and released in areas where densities are lower. Typically, the success of a translocation program is measured at the population source, with little attention given to the fate of translocated individuals. Here we use a koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) translocation program from southeastern Australia as a case study to investigate the effects of translocation on individual animals. The koala is an iconic species that occurs at high densities in some parts of its southern range, leading to numerous conservation and animal welfare issues. Between 1997 and 2007 over 3,000 koalas from a high-density island population were captured, surgically sterilized, and translocated to the mainland. Annual post-translocation surveys at release sites revealed densities of ≤0.4 koalas/ha, despite release densities of 1.0 koala/ha. Radiotracking studies indicate that low densities were because of both mortality and high dispersal of translocated individuals. We observed a mortality rate of 37.5% for translocated koalas in the first 12 months post-release. No deaths occurred among animals that were not sterilized and translocated. Translocated koalas moved greater distances than non-translocated animals. Monitoring of translocated individuals should be performed routinely during translocation programs for overabundant species. Due consideration must be given to what is an acceptable level of mortality for translocated individuals. Although often considered an ethically acceptable management technique (especially for iconic and charismatic species), translocation may not always be the best option from an animal welfare perspective. © 2012 The Wildlife Society.