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Non-invasive genetic sampling can facilitate the identification of individual animals across a landscape, with applications to management and conservation. Fecal material is a readily available source of DNA, and various methods exist for collecting fecal samples for DNA preservation. In particular, swab methods offer considerable promise, but their utility in real-world field contexts remains relatively untested. We systematically compared multiple genetic fecal sampling methods across all stages of data collection and analysis, including sampling in the field, DNA extraction in the lab, and identification of individuals using microsatellite genotyping. We collected 112 fecal samples from black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus) in the field in Mendocino County, California, across a range of sample conditions of unknown age. We systematically compared the efficiency, ease, and genotyping success of three methods for field collection and storage of ungulate fecal samples: whole pellets in ethanol, whole dry pellets in paper envelopes, and cotton swabs in buffer. Storage method, sample condition, and their interaction predicted genotyping success in the top binomial GLMMs. We found that swabbing pellets resulted in the greatest percentage of individually identifiable genotypes (81%, compared to 60% for dry samples and 56% for ethanol), despite lower DNA concentrations. While swabbing pellets requires a greater time investment in the field, the samples are easier and safer to store and transport, and subsequent labwork is more efficient as compared to whole-pellet collection methods. We, therefore, recommend the swab method for most contexts. We provide additional recommendations and field protocols based on subsequent collection of 2284 swab samples for a larger monitoring study of the deer population, given that this large number of samples spanned a range of sample conditions and time spent in storage.

Biophysical and socio-cultural factors have jointly shaped the distribution of global biodiversity, yet relatively few studies have quantitatively assessed the influence of social and ecological landscapes on wildlife distributions. We sought to determine whether social and ecological covariates shape the distribution of a cultural keystone species, the bearded pig (Sus barbatus). Drawing on a dataset of 295 total camera trap locations and 25,755 trap days across 18 field sites and three years in Sabah and Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo, we fitted occupancy models that incorporated socio-cultural covariates and ecological covariates hypothesized to influence bearded pig occupancy. We found that all competitive occupancy models included both socio-cultural and ecological covariates. Moreover, we found quantitative evidence supporting Indigenous pig hunting rights: predicted pig occupancy was positively associated with predicted high levels of Indigenous pig-hunting groups in low-accessibility areas, and predicted pig occupancy was positively associated with predicted medium and low levels of Indigenous pig-hunting groups in high-accessibility areas. These results suggest that bearded pig populations in Malaysian Borneo should be managed with context-specific strategies, promoting Indigenous pig hunting rights. We also provide important baseline information on bearded pig occupancy levels prior to the 2020–2021 outbreak of African Swine Fever (ASF), which caused social and ecological concerns after mass dieoffs of bearded pigs in Borneo. The abstract provided in Malay is in the Supplementary file.

Author(s): Gaynor, KM; Daskin, JH; Rich, LN; Brashares, JS | Abstract: As local and global disturbances reshape African savannas, an understanding of how animal communities recover and respond to landscape features can inform conservation and restoration. Here, we explored the spatial ecology of a wildlife community in Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, where conservation efforts have fostered the recovery of large mammal populations after their near-extirpation during Mozambique’s civil war. We deployed a grid of 60 camera traps and used a hierarchical, multi-species occupancy modeling approach to examine patterns of occupancy and its environmental and anthropogenic correlates for different functional groups and species. Our survey provides strong evidence that wildlife in Gorongosa is recovering. Throughout the study area, modeled species richness was comparable to richness in less-disturbed savanna systems in Tanzania and Botswana, and exceeded estimates of richness from a mixed-use landscape outside the park and from postwar (1997–2002) aerial surveys. However, the mammal community in Gorongosa differs from prewar conditions and from those of more intact systems, with few large carnivores, low occupancy probabilities for large ungulate species that were dominant prior to the war, and high occupancy for other ungulates that are now ubiquitous. Associations with tree cover varied among species and guilds. Contrary to our expectation, there was no effect of lake proximity on community and group-level occupancy, and previously dominant floodplain ungulate species now occupy more wooded areas. Mammals were more likely to occupy areas that burned frequently, as post-fire vegetation regrowth provides high-quality forage, highlighting the importance of Gorongosa’s fire regime. Occupancy was lower in areas with more illegal hunting, and higher closer to roads, potentially because roads were established in areas of high wildlife density and facilitate animal movement. Continued multi-species monitoring in Gorongosa can shed light on the different recovery trajectories of ungulate species and the consequences of ongoing large carnivore restoration, guiding conservation interventions.

Carnivore predation on livestock is a complex management and policy challenge, yet it is also intrinsically an ecological interaction between predators and prey. Human-wildlife interactions occur in socioecological systems in which human and environmental processes are closely linked. However, underlying human-wildlife conflict and key to unpacking its complexity are concrete and identifiable ecological mechanisms that lead to predation events. To better understand how ecological theory accords with interactions between wild predators and domestic prey, we developed a framework to describe ecological drivers of predation on livestock. We based this framework on foundational ecological theory and current research on interactions between predators and domestic prey. We used this framework to examine ecological mechanisms (e.g., density-mediated effects, behaviorally mediated effects, and optimal foraging theory) through which specific management interventions operate, and we analyzed the ecological determinants of failure and success of management interventions in 3 case studies: snow leopards (Panthera uncia), wolves (Canis lupus), and cougars (Puma concolor). The varied, context-dependent successes and failures of the management interventions in these case studies demonstrated the utility of using an ecological framework to ground research and management of carnivore-livestock conflict. Mitigation of human-wildlife conflict appears to require an understanding of how fundamental ecological theories work within domestic predator-prey systems.Un Marco de Trabajo Ecológico para Contextualizar el Conflicto Carnívoro - Ganado Resumen La depredación del ganado por carnívoros es un reto complejo para el manejo y las políticas, a pesar de que es intrínsecamente una interacción ecológica entre depredadores y presas. Las interacciones entre humanos y la fauna ocurren en sistemas socio-ecológicos en los que los humanos y los procesos ambientales están conectados estrechamente. Sin embargo, el conflicto humano - fauna subyacente y la clave para desenredar su complejidad son mecanismos ecológicos complejos e identificables que resultan en eventos de depredación. Para tener un mejor entendimiento sobre cómo la teoría ecológica armoniza con las interacciones entre los depredadores silvestres y la presa doméstica, desarrollamos un marco de trabajo para describir las causantes ecológicas de la depredación del ganado. Basamos este marco de trabajo en las principales teorías ecológicas y las investigaciones actuales sobre las interacciones entre los depredadores y las presas domésticas. Usamos este marco de trabajo para examinar los mecanismos ecológicos (es decir, los efectos mediados por la densidad, los efectos mediados por el comportamiento, y la teoría del forrajeo óptimo) mediante los cuales operan ciertas intervenciones específicas de manejo y analizamos las determinantes ecológicas del fracaso y el éxito de las intervenciones de manejo en tres estudios de caso: el leopardo de las nieves (Panthera uncia), el lobo (Canis lupus), y el puma (Puma concolor). Los éxitos y fracasos variados y dependientes del contexto que sufrieron las intervenciones de manejo en estos estudios de caso demostraron la utilidad del uso de un marco de trabajo ecológico para aterrizar la investigación y el manejo del conflicto carnívoro - ganado. La mitigación del conflicto humano - fauna parece requerir de un entendimiento sobre cómo funcionan las teorías ecológicas fundamentales dentro del sistema doméstico depredador - presa.食肉动物对家畜的捕食是管理和政策上面临的一项复杂挑战, 但它本质上也是捕食者和猎物的生态互作问题。人兽互作发生在人类与环境过程紧密联系的社会生态系统中; 然而, 人兽冲突及揭示其复杂性的本质则是导致捕食事件发生的、具体明确的生态学机制。为了更好地理解生态学理论如何反映野生捕食者和家养猎物之间的互作, 我们开发了一个框架来描述捕食家畜的生态驱动力。这个框架基于基础生态学理论和捕食者与家养猎物互作的研究现状。我们用这个框架分析了采取特定管理干预措施所依赖的生态学机制 (如密度调控作用、行为调控作用和最优觅食理论), 并对决定管理干预成败与否的生态学因素进行了三个案例分析, 分别涉及雪豹 (Panthera uncia) 、灰狼 (Canis lupus) 和美洲狮 (Puma concolor) 。这些案例中管理干预的成败取决于具体情境, 这显示了我们的生态框架在开展食肉动物与家畜冲突的研究和管理中的有效性。我们认为, 减缓人兽冲突需要了解基础生态学理论在捕食者-家养猎物系统中的作用原理。 【翻译: 胡怡思; 审校: 聂永刚】.

Author(s): Rich, LN; Furnas, BJ; Newton, DS; Brashares, JS | Abstract: Aim: Maintaining biodiversity in the face of land use and climate change is a paramount challenge, particularly when distributions of many species remain incompletely known. Emerging technologies help address this data deficiency by facilitating the collection of spatially explicit data for multiple species from multiple taxa. In this study, we combine acoustic and visual sensor surveys to inform conservation and land use planning in an area experiencing rapid climate and land use change. Location: Mojave Desert, California, United States. Methods: We deployed camera traps and acoustic detectors at 210 sites between March and July 2016. We identified photographic detections of mammals and acoustic recordings of songbirds to the species level and used multispecies occupancy models to estimate and evaluate species' occupancy probabilities. We then extrapolated model results to the region and forecasted how projected climate and land use changes might affect species' occupancy probabilities in 50nyears. Lastly, we identified areas with high conservation value (i.e., high relative species richness) now and in 50nyears, and related the distributions of these areas to land use designations. Results: We detected 15 mammal and 68 songbird species. At the community level, occupancy decreased with increasing temperatures and distances to woodlands. We forecasted that occupancy probabilities and areas with high conservation value would decline in 50nyears due to projected increases in maximum temperatures and identified that up to 43%, 24% and 27% of land designated for renewable energy development, recreation and military activities, respectively, encompassed these high value areas. Main conclusions: Cooler areas close to woodlands and water are of high conservation value to mammals and songbirds in the Mojave. These areas will become increasingly limited with changing climate, however, making their protection from human disturbance imperative. We encourage continued use of visual and acoustic sensors across large spatial, temporal and taxonomic scales as tools to inform land use and wildlife conservation.

Author(s): Grinath, JB; Larios, L; Prugh, LR; Brashares, JS; Suding, KN | Abstract: Understanding processes that determine biodiversity is a fundamental challenge in ecology. At the landscape scale, physical alteration of ecosystems by organisms, called ecosystem engineering, enhances biodiversity worldwide by increasing heterogeneity in resource conditions and enhancing species coexistence across engineered and non-engineered habitats. Engineering–diversity relationships can vary along environmental gradients due to changes in the amount of physical structuring created by ecosystem engineering, but it is unclear how this variation is influenced by the responsiveness of non-structural abiotic properties to engineering. Here we show that environmental gradients determine the capacity for engineering to alter resource availability and species diversity, independent of the magnitude of structural change produced by engineering. We created an experimental rainfall gradient in an arid grassland where rodents restructure soils by constructing large, long-lasting burrows. We found that greater rainfall increased water availability and productivity in both burrow and inter-burrow habitats, causing a decline in local (alpha) plant diversity within both of these habitats. However, increased rainfall also resulted in greater differences in soil resources between burrow and inter-burrow habitats, which increased species turnover (beta diversity) across habitats and stabilized landscape-level (gamma) diversity. These responses occurred regardless of rodent presence and without changes in the extent of physical alteration of soils by rodents. Our results suggest that environmental gradients can influence the effects of ecosystem engineering in maintaining biodiversity via resource heterogeneity and species turnover. In an era of rapid environmental change, accounting for this interaction may be critical to conservation and management.

With rapid global change, the frequency and severity of extreme disturbance events are increasing worldwide. The ability of animal populations to survive these stochastic events depends on how individual animals respond to their altered environments, yet our understanding of the immediate and short‐term behavioral responses of animals to acute disturbances remains poor. We focused on animal behavioral responses to the environmental disturbance created by megafire. Specifically, we explored the effects of the 2018 Mendocino Complex Fire in northern California, USA, on the behavior and body condition of black‐tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus). We predicted that deer would be displaced by the disturbance or experience high mortality post‐fire if they stayed in the burn area. We used data from GPS collars on 18 individual deer to quantify patterns of home range use, movement, and habitat selection before and after the fire. We assessed changes in body condition using images from a camera trap grid. The fire burned through half of the study area, facilitating a comparison between deer in burned and unburned areas. Despite a dramatic reduction in vegetation in burned areas, deer showed high site fidelity to pre‐fire home ranges, returning within hours of the fire. However, mean home range size doubled after the fire and corresponded to increased daily activity in a severely resource‐depleted environment. Within their home ranges, deer also selected strongly for patches of surviving vegetation and woodland habitat, as these areas provided forage and cover in an otherwise desolate landscape. Deer body condition significantly decreased after the fire, likely as a result of a reduction in forage within their home ranges, but all collared deer survived for the duration of the study. Understanding the ways in which large mammals respond to disturbances such as wildfire is increasingly important as the extent and severity of such events increases across the world. While many animals are adapted to disturbance regimes, species that exhibit high site fidelity or otherwise fixed behavioral strategies may struggle to cope with increased climate instability and associated extreme disturbance events., Black‐tailed mule deer exhibit high site fidelity, but increase home range size and change habitat selection in response to megafire in northern California.

Food-producing livelihoods have the potential to improve food security and nutrition through direct consumption or indirectly through income. To better understand these pathways, we examined if fishing households ate more fish and had higher food security than non-fishing households around Lake Victoria, Kenya. In 2010, we randomly sampled 111 households containing 583 individuals for a cross-sectional household survey in a rural fishing community. We modeled the associations between fish consumption and food security and fishing household status, as well as socio-economic variables (asset index, monthly income, household size) for all households and also for a subset of households with adult male household members (76 % of households). Participating in fishing as a livelihood was not associated with household fish consumption or food security. Higher household fish consumption was associated with higher household income and food security, and was weakly associated with lower household morbidity. Household food security was associated with higher incomes and asset index scores. Our results suggest socioeconomic factors may be more important than participation in food-producing livelihoods for predicting household consumption of high quality foods.

The fencing of protected areas is increasing worldwide. However, the implementation of fences for conservation has outpaced scientific assessment of their effectiveness, non-target impacts, and long-term costs. We assessed landscape predictors of fence crossing sites and employed camera traps over a one-year period to investigate wildlife responses to a conservation fence around Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya. Specifically, we measured the impact of the fence on wild mammal movement, and the temporal impacts of fence maintenance on wildlife crossings and behavior. Cameras captured more than 65,000 detections of animals approaching fences, with 3626 observed crossings over 2818 trap nights at 19 sites. Using these data, we developed a guide to classifying fence-specific mammal behaviors. Thirty-eight wild mammal species approached known weak points in the fence, and 27 species were recorded crossing the fence. No single environmental variable predicted detection or fence crossing points for all species, but seasonality, human activity, habitat visibility, and proximity to an adjacent protected area were each correlated with species-specific crossing locations. Additionally, breaches of repaired fence-crossing locations occurred within days of maintenance. We conclude that popular, ‘one-size-fits-all’, conservation fence designs may be ineffective and costly for restraining movement of many wildlife species. We recommend that those deploying conservation fences start with clearly articulated management goals, that fence maintenance be informed by taxa-specific tendencies to breach fences, and that managers consider the strategic creation of wildlife corridors, overpasses, or ungulate-proof fences to link fenced protected areas with surrounding habitat.

Author(s): Gaynor, Kaitlyn M; Brashares, Justin S; Gregory, Gillian H; Kurz, David J; Seto, Katherine L; Withey, Lauren S; Fiorella, Kathryn J

Author(s): McInturff, A; Xu, W; Wilkinson, CE; Dejid, N; Brashares, JS | Abstract: Investigations of the links between human infrastructure and ecological change have provided eye-opening insights into humanity's environmental impacts and contributed to global environmental policies. Fences are globally ubiquitous, yet they are often omitted from discussions of anthropogenic impacts. In the present article, we address this gap through a systematic literature review on the ecological effects of fences. Our overview provides five major takeaways: 1) an operational definition of fencing to structure future research, 2) an estimate of fence densities in the western United States to emphasize the challenges of accounting for fences in human-footprint mapping, 3) a framework exhibiting the ecological winners and losers that fences produce, 4) a typology of fence effects across ecological scales to guide research, and 5) a summary of research trends and biases that suggest that fence effects have been underestimated. Through highlighting past research and offering frameworks for the future, we aim with this work to formalize the nascent field of fence ecology.

An unprecedented era of climatic volatility is altering ecosystems across our planet1. The potential scale, pace and consequences of this global change have been modelled extensively2, yet little empirical research has quantified the impacts of extreme climate events on the composition of contemporary ecological communities. Here, we quantified the responses of 423 sympatric species of plants, arthropods, birds, reptiles and mammals to California’s drought of 2012–2015—the driest period in the past 1,200 years3 for this global biodiversity hotspot. Plants were most responsive to one-year water deficits, whereas vertebrates responded to longer-term deficits, and extended drought had the greatest impact on carnivorous animals. Locally rare species were more likely to increase in numbers and abundant species were more likely to decline in response to drought, and this negative density dependence was remarkably consistent across taxa and drought durations. Our system-wide analysis reveals that droughts indirectly promote the long-term persistence of rare species by stressing dominant species throughout the food web. These findings highlight processes that shape community structure in highly variable environments and provide insights into whole-community responses to modern climate volatility. California’s 2012–2015 drought is shown to have altered community structure (plants, arthropods, birds, reptiles and mammals), indirectly promoting the long-term persistence of rare species by stressing dominant ones.

International audience

Understanding feedbacks between human and environmental health is critical for the millions who cope with recurrent illness and rely directly on natural resources for sustenance. Although studies have examined how environmental degradation exacerbates infectious disease, the effects of human health on our use of the environment remains unexplored. Human illness is often tacitly assumed to reduce human impacts on the environment. By this logic, ill people reduce the time and effort that they put into extractive livelihoods and, thereby, their impact on natural resources. We followed 303 households living on Lake Victoria, Kenya over four time points to examine how illness influenced fishing. Using fixed effect conditional logit models to control for individual-level and time-invariant factors, we analyzed the effect of illness on fishing effort and methods. Illness among individuals who listed fishing as their primary occupation affected their participation in fishing. However, among active fishers, we found limited evidence that illness reduced fishing effort. Instead, ill fishers shifted their fishing methods. When ill, fishers were more likely to use methods that were illegal, destructive, and concentrated in inshore areas but required less travel and energy. Ill fishers were also less likely to fish using legal methods that are physically demanding, require travel to deep waters, and are considered more sustainable. By altering the physical capacity and outlook of fishers, human illness shifted their effort, their engagement with natural resources, and the sustainability of their actions. These findings show a previously unexplored pathway through which poor human health may negatively impact the environment.

Summary Evaluating landscape connectivity and identifying and protecting corridors for animal movement have become central challenges in applied ecology and conservation. Currently, resource selection analyses are widely used to focus corridor planning where animal movement is predicted to occur. An animal's behavioural state (e.g. foraging, dispersing) is a significant determinant of resource selection patterns, yet has largely been ignored in connectivity assessments. We review 16 years of connectivity studies employing resource selection analysis to evaluate how researchers have incorporated animal behaviour into corridor planning, and highlight promising new approaches for identifying wildlife corridors. To illustrate the importance of behavioural information in such analyses, we present an empirical case study to test behaviour-specific predictions of connectivity with long-distance dispersal movements of African wild dogs Lycaon pictus. We conclude by recommending strategies for developing more realistic connectivity models for future conservation efforts. Our review indicates that most connectivity studies conflate resource selection with connectivity requirements, which may result in misleading estimates of landscape resistance, and lack validation of proposed connectivity models with movement data. Our case study shows that including only directed movement behaviour when measuring resource selection reveals markedly different, and more accurate, connectivity estimates than a model measuring resource selection independent of behavioural state. Synthesis and applications. Our results, using African wild dogs as a case study, suggest that resource selection analyses that fail to consider an animal's behavioural state may be insufficient in targeting movement pathways and corridors for protection. This failure may result in misidentification of wildlife corridors and misallocation of limited conservation resources. Our findings underscore the need for considering patterns of animal movement in appropriate behavioural contexts to ensure the effective application of resource selection analyses for corridor planning.

© 2019 Elsevier Ltd Animals experience varying levels of predation risk as they navigate heterogeneous landscapes, and behavioral responses to perceived risk can structure ecosystems. The concept of the landscape of fear has recently become central to describing this spatial variation in risk, perception, and response. We present a framework linking the landscape of fear, defined as spatial variation in prey perception of risk, to the underlying physical landscape and predation risk, and to resulting patterns of prey distribution and antipredator behavior. By disambiguating the mechanisms through which prey perceive risk and incorporate fear into decision making, we can better quantify the nonlinear relationship between risk and response and evaluate the relative importance of the landscape of fear across taxa and ecosystems.

Cross-boundary transfers of nutrients can profoundly shape the ecology of recipient systems. The common hippopotamus, Hippopotamus amphibius, is a significant vector of such subsidies from terrestrial to river ecosystems. We compared river pools with high and low densities of H. amphibius to determine how H. amphibius subsidies shape the chemistry and ecology of aquatic communities. Our study watershed, like many in sub-Saharan Africa, has been severely impacted by anthropogenic water abstraction reducing dry-season flow to zero. We conducted observations for multiple years over wet and dry seasons to identify how hydrological variability influences the impacts of H. amphibius. During the wet season, when the river was flowing, we detected no differences in water chemistry and nutrient parameters between pools with high and low densities of H. amphibius. Likewise, the diversity and abundance of fish and aquatic insect communities were indistinguishable. During the dry season, however, high-density H. amphibius pools differed drastically in almost all measured attributes of water chemistry and exhibited depressed fish and insect diversity and fish abundance compared with low-density H. amphibius pools. Scaled up to the entire watershed, we estimate that H. amphibius in this hydrologically altered watershed reduces dry-season fish abundance and indices of gamma-level diversity by 41% and 16%, respectively, but appears to promote aquatic invertebrate diversity. Widespread human-driven shifts in hydrology appear to redefine the role of H. amphibius, altering their influence on ecosystem diversity and functioning in a fashion that may be more severe than presently appreciated.

© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. Women's access to natural resources for food and livelihoods is shaped by resource availability, income, and the gender dynamics that mediate access. In fisheries, where men often fish but women comprise 90% of traders, transactional sex is among the strategies women use to access resources. Using the case of Lake Victoria, we employed mixed methods (in-depth interviews, n = 30; cross-sectional survey, n = 303) to analyze the influence of fish declines on fish-for-sex relationships. We found that fish declines affect relationship duration and women's bargaining power. Our results have broad implications for the dynamics of economies dependent on increasingly scarce resources throughout the world.

Understanding how anthropogenic features affect species' abilities to move within landscapes is essential to conservation planning and requires accurate assessment of resource selection for movement by focal species. Yet, the extent to which an individual's behavioural state (e.g. foraging, resting, commuting) influences resource selection has largely been ignored. Recent advances in Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking technology can fill this gap by associating distinct behavioural states with location data. We investigated the role of behaviour in determining the responses of an endangered species of carnivore, the African wild dog Lycaon pictus, to one of the most widespread forms of landscape alteration globally: road systems. We collected high-resolution GPS and activity data from 13 wild dogs in northern Botswana over a 2-year period. We employed a step selection framework to measure resource selection across three behavioural states identified from activity data (high-speed running, resting and travelling) and across a gradient of habitats and seasons, and compared these outputs to a full model that did not parse for behaviour. The response of wild dogs to roads varied markedly with both the behavioural and the landscape contexts in which roads were encountered. Specifically, wild dogs selected roads when travelling, ignored roads when high-speed running and avoided roads when resting. This distinction was not evident when all movement data were considered together in the full model. When travelling, selection for roads increased in denser vegetative environments, suggesting that roads may enhance movement for this species. Our findings indicate that including behavioural information in resource selection models is critical to understanding wildlife responses to landscape features and suggest that successful application of resource selection analyses to conservation planning requires explicit examination of the behavioural contexts in which movement occurs. Thus, behaviour-specific step selection functions offer a powerful tool for identifying resource selection patterns for animal behaviours of conservation significance.

Nocturnal refuge As the human population grows, there are fewer places for animals to live out their lives independently of our influence. Given our mostly diurnal tendencies, one domain that remains less affected by humans is the night. Gaynor et al. found that across the globe and across mammalian species—from deer to coyotes and from tigers to wild boar—animals are becoming more nocturnal (see the Perspective by Benítez-López). Human activities of all kinds, including nonlethal pastimes such as hiking, seem to drive animals to make use of hours when we are not around. Such changes may provide some relief, but they may also have ecosystem-level consequences. Science , this issue p. 1232 ; see also p. 1185

Background Because empirical studies of animal movement are most-often site- and species-specific, we lack understanding of the level of consistency in movement patterns across diverse taxa, as well as a framework for quantitatively classifying movement patterns. We aim to address this gap by determining the extent to which statistical signatures of animal movement patterns recur across ecological systems. We assessed a suite of movement metrics derived from GPS trajectories of thirteen marine and terrestrial vertebrate species spanning three taxonomic classes, orders of magnitude in body size, and modes of movement (swimming, flying, walking). Using these metrics, we performed a principal components analysis and cluster analysis to determine if individuals organized into statistically distinct clusters. Finally, to identify and interpret commonalities within clusters, we compared them to computer-simulated idealized movement syndromes representing suites of correlated movement traits observed across taxa (migration, nomadism, territoriality, and central place foraging). Results Two principal components explained 70% of the variance among the movement metrics we evaluated across the thirteen species, and were used for the cluster analysis. The resulting analysis revealed four statistically distinct clusters. All simulated individuals of each idealized movement syndrome organized into separate clusters, suggesting that the four clusters are explained by common movement syndrome. Conclusions Our results offer early indication of widespread recurrent patterns in movement ecology that have consistent statistical signatures, regardless of taxon, body size, mode of movement, or environment. We further show that a simple set of metrics can be used to classify broad-scale movement patterns in disparate vertebrate taxa. Our comparative approach provides a general framework for quantifying and classifying animal movements, and facilitates new inquiries into relationships between movement syndromes and other ecological processes. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40462-017-0104-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Individual behavioural specialisation has far-reaching effects on fitness and population persistence. Theory predicts that unconditional site fidelity, that is fidelity to a site independent of past outcome, provides a fitness advantage in unpredictable environments. However, the benefits of alternative site fidelity strategies driving intraspecific variation remain poorly understood and have not been evaluated in different environmental contexts. We show that contrary to expectation, strong and weak site fidelity strategies in migratory northern elephant seals performed similarly over 10 years, but the success of each strategy varied interannually and was strongly mediated by climate conditions. Strong fidelity facilitated stable energetic rewards and low risk, while weak fidelity facilitated high rewards and high risk. Weak fidelity outperformed strong fidelity in anomalous climate conditions, suggesting that the evolutionary benefits of site fidelity may be upended by increasing environmental variability. We highlight how individual behavioural specialisation may modulate the adaptive capacity of species to climate change.

1.Climate change is transforming precipitation regimes worldwide. Changes in precipitation regimes are known to have powerful effects on plant productivity, but the consequences of these shifts for the dynamics of ecological communities are poorly understood. This knowledge gap hinders our ability to anticipate and mitigate the impacts of climate change on biodiversity. 2.Precipitation may affect fauna through direct effects on physiology, behavior or demography, through plant-mediated indirect effects, or by modifying interactions among species. In this paper, we examined the response of a semi-arid ecological community to a fivefold change in precipitation over seven years. 3.We examined the effects of precipitation on the dynamics of a grassland ecosystem in central California from 2007 to 2013. We conducted vegetation surveys, pitfall trapping of invertebrates, visual surveys of lizards, and capture-mark-recapture surveys of rodents on 30 plots each year. We used structural equation modelling to evaluate the direct, indirect, and modifying effects of precipitation on plants, ants, beetles, orthopterans, kangaroo rats, ground squirrels, and lizards. 4.We found pervasive effects of precipitation on the ecological community. Although precipitation increased plant biomass, direct effects on fauna were often stronger than plant-mediated effects. In addition, precipitation altered the sign or strength of consumer-resource and facilitative interactions among the faunal community such that negative or neutral interactions became positive or vice versa with increasing precipitation. 5.These findings indicate that precipitation influences ecological communities in multiple ways beyond its recognized effects on primary productivity. Stochastic variation in precipitation may weaken the average strength of biotic interactions over time, thereby increasing ecosystem stability and resilience to climate change. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Wildlife consumption can be viewed as an ecosystem provisioning service (the production of a material good through ecological functioning) because of wildlife's ability to persist under sustainable levels of harvest. We used the case of wildlife harvest and consumption in northeastern Madagascar to identify the distribution of these services to local households and communities to further our understanding of local reliance on natural resources. We inferred these benefits from demand curves built with data on wildlife sales transactions. On average, the value of wildlife provisioning represented 57% of annual household cash income in local communities from the Makira Natural Park and Masoala National Park, and harvested areas produced an economic return of U.S.$0.42 ha-1· year-1. Variability in value of harvested wildlife was high among communities and households with an approximate 2 orders of magnitude difference in the proportional value of wildlife to household income. The imputed price of harvested wildlife and its consumption were strongly associated (p< 0.001), and increases in price led to reduced harvest for consumption. Heightened monitoring and enforcement of hunting could increase the costs of harvesting and thus elevate the price and reduce consumption of wildlife. Increased enforcement would therefore be beneficial to biodiversity conservation but could limit local people's food supply. Specifically, our results provide an estimate of the cost of offsetting economic losses to local populations from the enforcement of conservation policies. By explicitly estimating the welfare effects of consumed wildlife, our results may inform targeted interventions by public health and development specialists as they allocate sparse funds to support regions, households, or individuals most vulnerable to changes in access to wildlife. © 2013 Society for Conservation Biology.

Living nature can be thought of as a tapestry, defined not only by its constituent parts but also by how these parts are woven together. The weaving of this tapestry is a metaphor for species interactions, which can be divided into three broad classes: competitive, mutualistic, and consumptive. Direct interactions link together as more complex networks, for example, the joining of consumptive interactions into food webs. Food web dynamics are driven, in turn, by changes in the abundances of web members, whose numbers or biomass respond to bottom-up (resource limitation) and top-down (consumer limitation) forcing. The relative strengths of top-down and bottom-up forcing on the abundance of a given web member depend on its ecological context, including its topological position within the food web. Top-down effects by diverse consumers are nearly ubiquitous, in many cases influencing the structure and operation of ecosystems. While the ecological effects of such interactions are well known, far less is known of their evolutionary consequences. In this essay, we describe sundry consequences of these interaction chains on species and ecosystem processes, explain several known or suspected evolutionary effects of consumer-induced interaction chains, and identify areas where reciprocity between ecology and evolution involving the indirect effects of consumer-prey interaction chains might be further explored.

Researchers and practitioners from a range of fields including conservation biology, sociology, public health and economics rely on information gained from interviews to quantify the frequency and scale of activities or events of interest. These ‘recall’ data often form the basis of wildlife sustainability assessments and, ultimately, policy decisions and management actions, but they are highly vulnerable to bias, particularly when the behavior of interest has strong temporal variation. Here, we investigate bias in recalls of wildlife consumption in rural Madagascar by comparing oral recalls collected monthly and annually from male heads of household with daily diet diaries maintained by female heads of household. Daily diet calendars collected from 28 households were assumed to be the measure of true consumption and were used to validate the recalled information. While we found little interhousehold variation in accuracy of responses, we found a tendency for recalls to overreport rates of wildlife consumption. Estimating the annual frequency of rare and/or seasonal events was quantified more accurately by recalls of the prior year than by extrapolation of recalls of the prior month. We conclude that monthly variation in consumption rate leads to predictable errors in estimation of the annual consumption rate. Local consumption of wildlife has large temporal variability, reflecting human preference or the underlying life cycles of animals being consumed. Accurate assessment of consumption rates therefore requires determining an appropriate recall period by taking into account the temporal variability and frequency of the events in question.

Aim The critically endangered Cross River gorilla is a patchily distributed taxon for which habitat selection has been modelled only at coarse spatial scales, using remotely sensed landscape data and large-scale species distribution maps. These coarse-scale models fail to explain why Cross River gorillas (CRG) display a highly fragmented distribution within what appears to be a large, continuous area of suitable habitat. This study aimed to refine our understanding of CRG habitat use to inform conservation planning both for the subspecies and for other fragmented species of conservation concern. Location Cross River gorillas occur only in a discontinuous distribution in the southern portion of the Cameroon-Nigeria border region, an area that represents one of Africa's biodiversity hotspots. This study was carried out in the Northern Mone-Mt. Oko region, part of the Mone/Mbulu forest system located in the Manyu division of the South-west Province of Cameroon. Methods We used resource selection functions to understand habitat use by CRG at multiple scales. Specifically, we employed generalized additive models at the scale of the annual subpopulation range and conditional logistic regression at the scale of individual movements. Results Cross River gorillas habitat selection is highly scale dependent. Localized measures of habitat quality strongly influenced selection at the subpopulation or landscape scale, while human activity and food availability were the best predictors of selection at finer scales. Main conclusions Understanding why CRG do not occur in seemingly suitable habitat is crucial for designating critical habitat both within and between CRG subpopulations. Our results indicate that conservation planning to maintain critical habitat and connectivity among CRG populations will require an integrative, multi-scale planning approach incorporating large-scale landscape characteristics, human use patterns and CRG food availability.