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Integrating behaviour and ecology into global biodiversity conservation strategies.

ABSTRACT: Insights into animal behaviour play an increasingly central role in species-focused conservation practice. However, progress towards incorporating behaviour into regional or global conservation strategies has been more limited, not least because standardized datasets of behavioural traits are generally lacking at wider taxonomic or spatial scales. Here we make use of the recent expansion of global datasets for birds to assess the prospects for including behavioural traits in systematic conservation priority-setting and monitoring programmes. Using International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List classifications for more than 9500 bird species, we show that the incidence of threat can vary substantially across different behavioural categories, and that some types of behaviour-including particular foraging, mating and migration strategies-are significantly more threatened than others. The link between behavioural traits and extinction risk is partly driven by correlations with well-established geographical and ecological factors (e.g. range size, body mass, human population pressure), but our models also reveal that behaviour modifies the effect of these factors, helping to explain broad-scale patterns of extinction risk. Overall, these results suggest that a multi-species approach at the scale of communities, continents and ecosystems can be used to identify and monitor threatened behaviours, and to flag up cases of latent extinction risk, where threatened status may currently be underestimated. Our findings also highlight the importance of comprehensive standardized descriptive data for ecological and behavioural traits, and point the way towards deeper integration of behaviour into quantitative conservation assessments. This article is part of the theme issue 'Linking behaviour to dynamics of populations and communities: application of novel approaches in behavioural ecology to conservation'.

SUBMITTER: Tobias JA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6710563 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Integrating behaviour and ecology into global biodiversity conservation strategies.

Tobias Joseph A JA Pigot Alex L AL

Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences 20190729 1781

Insights into animal behaviour play an increasingly central role in species-focused conservation practice. However, progress towards incorporating behaviour into regional or global conservation strategies has been more limited, not least because standardized datasets of behavioural traits are generally lacking at wider taxonomic or spatial scales. Here we make use of the recent expansion of global datasets for birds to assess the prospects for including behavioural traits in systematic conservat ...[more]

PMID: 31352893

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Project description:The Omura's whale (Balaenoptera omurai) was described as a new species in 2003 and then soon after as an ancient lineage basal to a Bryde's/sei whale clade. Currently known only from whaling and stranding specimens primarily from the western Pacific and eastern Indian Oceans, there exist no confirmed field observations or ecological/behavioural data. Here we present, to our knowledge, the first genetically confirmed documentation of living Omura's whales including descriptions of basic ecology and behaviour from northwestern Madagascar. Species identification was confirmed through molecular phylogenetic analyses of biopsies collected from 18 adult animals. All individuals shared a single haplotype in a 402 bp sequence of mtDNA control region, suggesting low diversity and a potentially small population. Sightings of 44 groups indicated preference for shallow-water shelf habitat with sea surface temperature between 27.4°C and 30.2°C. Frequent observations were made of lunge feeding, possibly on zooplankton. Observations of four mothers with young calves, and recordings of a song-like vocalization probably indicate reproductive behaviour. Social organization consisted of loose aggregations of predominantly unassociated single individuals spatially and temporally clustered. Photographic recapture of a female re-sighted the following year with a young calf suggests site fidelity or a resident population. Our results demonstrate that the species is a tropical whale without segregation of feeding and breeding habitat, and is probably non-migratory; our data extend the range of this poorly studied whale into the western Indian Ocean. Exclusive range restriction to tropical waters is rare among baleen whale species, except for the various forms of Bryde's whales and Omura's whales. Thus, the discovery of a tractable population of Omura's whales in the tropics presents an opportunity for understanding the ecological factors driving potential convergence of life-history patterns with the distantly related Bryde's whales.

Dataset Information

Integrating behaviour and ecology into global biodiversity conservation strategies.

Publications

Integrating behaviour and ecology into global biodiversity conservation strategies.

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