Project description:The integrity of natural landscapes is affected by human actions, mainly by the intensification and expansion of agriculture. Factors such as fragment size and the structure of the environment can determine changes in the structure and composition of bird assemblages. In this study we evaluated the bird species composition in three structurally different forest environments, defined as the Core areas, Edge areas, and Buffer areas. The surveys were performed in the Natural Park of Sertão (NPS) and its surroundings in the southern limit of the Atlantic Forest, southern Brazil. To record species composition of birds, the point count method was used. The bird species were categorized according to feeding habits, habitat use, and sensitivity to forest fragmentation. A total of 131 species of birds distributed in 18 orders and 38 families were recorded. The species composition varied between the three areas and there was a significant difference in diversity between the Core and Edge areas and the Core and Buffer areas. Omnivorous species were found more in the Buffer areas than in the Core areas. Species that use the Broad habitat were more frequent in the Buffer and Edge areas than in the Core areas. Species that use the Forest habitat were found more in the Core areas than in the Buffer areas. Most recorded species (66%) have low sensitivity to forest fragmentation. The assemblage patterns found in this study, notably the differences among the three areas in diversity and species composition, can be explained by the ecological traits and the sensitivity levels of birds to forest fragmentation, which in turn seem to reflect different forest structures in the NPS and its surroundings. Although the Edge and Buffer areas have greater diversity, the Core areas showed great importance in maintaining species that are more sensitive to forest fragmentation. Even the largest fragments (such as the NPS), considering the regional context, may have bird species that are widely distributed and less sensitive to forest fragmentation. Forested habitat species may no longer occur or be restricted to the core area of the fragments. For conservation of bird fauna in the NPS, the maintenance of the core areas is essential, especially for those species that require a structurally preserved environment.
Project description:Several global strategies for protected area (PA) expansion have been proposed to achieve the Convention on Biological Diversity's Aichi target 11 as a means to stem biodiversity loss, as required by the Aichi target 12. However, habitat loss outside PAs will continue to affect habitats and species, and PAs may displace human activities into areas that might be even more important for species persistence. Here we measure the expected contribution of PA expansion strategies to Aichi target 12 by estimating the extent of suitable habitat available for all terrestrial mammals, with and without additional protection (the latter giving the counterfactual outcome), under different socio-economic scenarios and consequent land-use change to 2020. We found that expanding PAs to achieve representation targets for ecoregions under a Business-as-usual socio-economic scenario will result in a worse prognosis than doing nothing for more than 50% of the world's terrestrial mammals. By contrast, targeting protection towards threatened species can increase the suitable habitat available to over 60% of terrestrial mammals. Even in the absence of additional protection, an alternative socio-economic scenario, adopting progressive changes in human consumption, leads to positive outcomes for mammals globally and to the largest improvements for wide-ranging species.
Project description:We have applied a multispecies ecosystem approach to analyse the ingestion of anthropogenic particles (AP) in the gastrointestinal tract of 313 individuals (17 fish species and 8 invertebrate species) from pelagic, demersal and benthic habitats in a marine protected area off the Western Mediterranean (Cabrera National Park). We have quantified and characterized the ingestion at several taxonomic levels of fish, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, bivalves, and jellyfish in relation to biotic/abiotic factors based on taxonomic groups, trophic guilds (functional groups) and habitats. AP ingestion occurrence ranged from 26 to 100% with no significant differences among taxonomic groups. The fish within the MPA showed an overall ingestion occurrence ranging from 0 to 100%, the echinoderms from 29 to 100%, the bivalves from 72 to 96% and the jellyfish 36% ingestion. The ecosystem approach applied to evaluate overall AP ingestion within the species reported that for trophic guilds, the omnivorous species ingested the highest amounts of anthropogenic items, while herbivores ingested significantly fewer items than all other trophic guilds. Moreover, no significant differences were found amongst habitats, indicating a homogeneous spatial distribution of APs at all studied habitats. The multispecies approach provided insight into the high APs exposure to species within Cabrera MPA, highlighting the potential harm linked with marine litter that threatens marine biodiversity.
Project description:The dual mandate for many protected areas (PAs) to simultaneously promote recreation and conserve biodiversity may be hampered by negative effects of recreation on wildlife. However, reports of these effects are not consistent, presenting a knowledge gap that hinders evidence-based decision-making. We used camera traps to monitor human activity and terrestrial mammals in Golden Ears Provincial Park and the adjacent University of British Columbia Malcolm Knapp Research Forest near Vancouver, Canada, with the objective of discerning relative effects of various forms of recreation on cougars (Puma concolor), black bears (Ursus americanus), black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus), snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus), coyotes (Canis latrans), and bobcats (Lynx rufus). Additionally, public closures of the study area associated with the COVD-19 pandemic offered an unprecedented period of human-exclusion through which to explore these effects. Using Bayesian generalized mixed-effects models, we detected negative effects of hikers (mean posterior estimate = -0.58, 95% credible interval [CI] -1.09 to -0.12) on weekly bobcat habitat use and negative effects of motorized vehicles (estimate = -0.28, 95% CI -0.61 to -0.05) on weekly black bear habitat use. We also found increased cougar detection rates in the PA during the COVID-19 closure (estimate = 0.007, 95% CI 0.005 to 0.009), but decreased cougar detection rates (estimate = -0.006, 95% CI -0.009 to -0.003) and increased black-tailed deer detection rates (estimate = 0.014, 95% CI 0.002 to 0.026) upon reopening of the PA. Our results emphasize that effects of human activity on wildlife habitat use and movement may be species- and/or activity-dependent, and that camera traps can be an invaluable tool for monitoring both wildlife and human activity, collecting data even when public access is barred. Further, we encourage PA managers seeking to promote both biodiversity conservation and recreation to explicitly assess trade-offs between these two goals in their PAs.
Project description:Despite the prevalence of protected areas, evidence of their impacts on people is weak and remains hotly contested in conservation policy. A key question in this debate is whether socioeconomic impacts vary according to social subgroup. Given that social inequity can create conflict and impede poverty reduction, understanding how protected areas differentially affect people is critical to designing them to achieve social and biological goals. Understanding heterogeneous responses to protected areas can improve targeting of management activities and help elucidate the pathways through which impacts of protected areas occur. Here, we assessed whether the socioeconomic impacts of marine protected areas (MPAs)-designed to achieve goals for both conservation and poverty alleviation-differed according to age, gender or religion in associated villages in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Using data from pre-, mid- and post-implementation of the MPAs for control and project villages, we found little empirical evidence that impacts on five key socioeconomic indicators related to poverty differed according to social subgroup. We found suggestive empirical evidence that the effect of the MPAs on environmental knowledge differed by age and religion; over the medium and long terms, younger people and Muslims showed greater improvements compared with older people and Christians, respectively.
Project description:Humans alter ecosystems through both consumptive and non-consumptive effects. Consumptive effects occur through hunting, fishing and collecting, while non-consumptive effects occur due to the responses of wildlife to human presence. While marine conservation efforts have focused on reducing consumptive effects, managing human presence is also necessary to maintain and restore healthy ecosystems. Area closures and the tourism freeze related to the COVID-19 pandemic provided a unique natural experiment to measure the effects of decreased tourism on fish behavior in a high use no-take marine protected area (MPA) in Hawai`i. We found that when tourism shut down due to COVID restrictions in 2020, fish biomass increased and predatory species increased usage of shallow habitats, where tourists typically concentrate. When tourism resumed, fish biomass and habitat use returned to pre-pandemic levels. These displacement effects change fish community composition and biomass, which could affect key processes such as spawning, foraging and resting, and have knock-on effects that compromise ecosystem function and resilience. Managing non-consumptive uses, especially in heavily-visited MPAs, should be considered for sustainability of these ecosystems.
Project description:With the increase in illegal resource harvesting in most protected areas (PAs), the need to understand the determinants and relationships between PAs and local communities to enhance wildlife conservation is increasingly becoming important. Using focus group discussions and interviews, we established the determinants of PA staff-community relationship from both PA staff and local communities' viewpoints, and assessedperceptions of their relationship with each other. The study was guided by the following main research question, 'What is the nature of the relationship between PA staff and local communities and what are the main factors influencing the relationship?' Data were collected through focus group discussions and interviews from four PAs and their adjacent communities in Zimbabwe between July 2013 and February 2014. Our results showed that a total of seven determinants were identified as influencing PA staff-community relationship, i.e., benefit-sharing, human-wildlife conflict, compensation for losses from wildlife attacks, communication between PA staff and local communities, community participation in the management of CAMPFIRE projects, lack of community participation in tourism in PAs, and community perceptions of PA staff or PA staff perceptions of the community. Of the seven, only one determinant, benefit-sharing, was recorded as the main factor that differentially influencesthe perceptions of community and PA staff on their relationship. Furthermore, both the communities and PA staff reported mixed perceptions on their relationship with each other. We conclude that both communities' and PA staff's views on determinants are largely similar in all studied PAs irrespective of PA ownership, management and/or land use. Our findings could be relevant in policy making especially in developing countries in developing PA-community relationship framework in natural resource conservation.
Project description:The management objectives of many protected areas must meet the dual mandates of protecting biodiversity while providing recreational opportunities. It is difficult to balance these mandates because it takes considerable effort to monitor both the status of biodiversity and impacts of recreation. Using detections from 45 camera traps deployed between July 2019 and September 2021, we assessed the potential impacts of recreation on spatial and temporal activity for 8 medium- and large-bodied terrestrial mammals in an isolated alpine protected area: Cathedral Provincial Park, British Columbia, Canada. We hypothesised that some wildlife perceive a level of threat from people, such that they avoid 'risky times' or 'risky places' associated with human activity. Other species may benefit from associating with people, be it through access to anthropogenic resource subsidies or filtering of competitors/predators that are more human-averse (i.e., human shield hypothesis). Specifically, we predicted that large carnivores would show the greatest segregation from people while mesocarnivores and ungulates would associate spatially with people. We found spatial co-occurrence between ungulates and recreation, consistent with the human shield hypothesis, but did not see the predicted negative relationship between larger carnivores and humans, except for coyotes (Canis latrans). Temporally, all species other than cougars (Puma concolor) had diel activity patterns significantly different from that of recreationists, suggesting potential displacement in the temporal niche. Wolves (Canis lupus) and mountain goats (Oreamnos americanus) showed shifts in temporal activity away from people on recreation trails relative to off-trail areas, providing further evidence of potential displacement. Our results highlight the importance of monitoring spatial and temporal interactions between recreation activities and wildlife communities, in order to ensure the effectiveness of protected areas in an era of increasing human impacts.
Project description:Marine protected areas (MPAs) are considered viable fisheries management tools due to their potential benefits of adult spillover and recruitment subsidy to nearby fisheries. However, before-after control-impact studies that explore the biological and fishery effects of MPAs to surrounding fisheries are scarce. We present results from a fine-scale spatial gradient study conducted before and after the implementation of a 5 km2 lobster MPA in southern Norway. A significant nonlinear response in lobster abundance, estimated as catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) from experimental fishing, was detected within 2 years of protection. After 4 years, CPUE values inside the MPA had increased by a magnitude of 2.6 compared to before-protection values. CPUE showed a significant nonlinear decline from the centre of the MPA, with a depression immediately outside the border and a plateau in fished areas. Overall fishing pressure almost doubled over the course of the study. The highest increase in fishing pressure (by a magnitude of 3) was recorded within 1 km of the MPA border, providing a plausible cause for the depression in CPUE. Taken together, these results demonstrate the need to regulate fishing pressure in surrounding areas when MPAs are implemented as fishery management tools.
Project description:Protected areas (PAs) are expected to conserve nature and provide ecosystem services in perpetuity, yet widespread protected area downgrading, downsizing, and degazettement (PADDD) may compromise these objectives. Even iconic protected areas are vulnerable to PADDD, although these PADDD events are often unrecognized. We identified 23 enacted and proposed PADDD events within World Natural Heritage Sites and examined the history, context, and consequences of PADDD events in 4 iconic PAs (Yosemite National Park, Arabian Oryx Sanctuary, Yasuní National Park, and Virunga National Park). Based on insights from published research and international workshops, these 4 cases revealed the diverse pressures brought on by competing interests to develop or exploit natural landscapes and the variety of mechanisms that enables PADDD. Knowledge gaps exist in understanding of the conditions through which development pressures translate to PADDD events and their impacts, partially due to a lack of comprehensive PADDD records. Future research priorities should include comprehensive regional and country-level profiles and analysis of risks, impacts, and contextual factors related to PADDD. Policy options to better govern PADDD include improving tracking and reporting of PADDD events, establishing transparent PADDD policy processes, coordinating among legal frameworks, and mitigating negative impacts of PADDD. To support PADDD research and policy reforms, enhanced human and financial capacities are needed to train local researchers and to host publicly accessible data. As the conservation community considers the achievements of Aichi Target 11 and moves toward new biodiversity targets beyond 2020, researchers, practitioners, and policy makers need to work together to better track, assess, and govern PADDD globally.