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Effective outreach for an endangered species often requires an understanding of human dimensions information to guide pro-conservation behavior. To provide a foundation for outreach communication s...

One Health is a collaborative, interdisciplinary effort that seeks optimal health for people, animals, plants, and the environment. Toxoplasmosis, caused by Toxoplasma gondii, is an intracellular protozoan infection distributed worldwide, with a heteroxenous life cycle that practically affects all homeotherms and in which felines act as definitive reservoirs. Herein, we review the natural history of T. gondii, its transmission and impacts in humans, domestic animals, wildlife both terrestrial and aquatic, and ecosystems. The epidemiology, prevention, and control strategies are reviewed, with the objective of facilitating awareness of this disease and promoting transdisciplinary collaborations, integrative research, and capacity building among universities, government agencies, NGOs, policy makers, practicing physicians, veterinarians, and the general public.

The historical ecology of an area can be best understood from a biocultural perspective in which human social systems and ecosystems are interrelated and interdependent. We utilized such a perspective to investigate the effects of socioeconomic, political, and cultural viewpoints on the intentional introduction of at least 91 game species to Hawai‘i over the past 230 years. Historical records of game species introductions and inter-island translocations were described in relation to historical events since European contact (1778). Changes in public opinion toward game shifted according to the prevailing cultural climate of the time, corresponding with historical periods that can be demarcated by five major political events: European contact (1778), the Kingdom of Hawai‘i (1819), the Territory of Hawai‘i (1898), the end of World War II (1945), and the Endangered Species Act (1973). In Hawai‘i, environmental management approaches have been integrated with changing cultural values, and the resultant game management policies have reflected shifting views of game species from valuable food sources to recreational sport to ecological nuisance. Such recognition of the interrelationship between politics, economics, and ecosystems allows us to better utilize past lessons to bring about future change by encouraging resource managers to consider cultural factors when formulating effective present and future ecological management goals.

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. With the accelerating pace of global change, it is imperative that we obtain rapid inventories of the status and distribution of wildlife for ecological inferences and conservation planning. To address this challenge, we launched the SNAPSHOT USA project, a collaborative survey of terrestrial wildlife populations using camera traps across the United States. For our first annual survey, we compiled data across all 50 states during a 14-week period (17 August - 24 November of 2019). We sampled wildlife at 1509 camera trap sites from 110 camera trap arrays covering 12 different ecoregions across four development zones. This effort resulted in 166,036 unique detections of 83 species of mammals and 17 species of birds. All images were processed through the Smithsonian's eMammal camera trap data repository and included an expert review phase to ensure taxonomic accuracy of data, resulting in each picture being reviewed at least twice. The results represent a timely and standardized camera trap survey of the USA. All of the 2019 survey data are made available herein. We are currently repeating surveys in fall 2020, opening up the opportunity to other institutions and cooperators to expand coverage of all the urban-wild gradients and ecophysiographic regions of the country. Future data will be available as the database is updated at eMammal.si.edu/snapshot-usa, as well as future data paper submissions. These data will be useful for local and macroecological research including the examination of community assembly, effects of environmental and anthropogenic landscape variables, effects of fragmentation and extinction debt dynamics, as well as species-specific population dynamics and conservation action plans. There are no copyright restrictions; please cite this paper when using the data for publication. Publisher PDF

Wild pigs (Sus scrofa) are one of the most detrimental invasive mammals in the US. Lack of adequate population control has allowed pigs to become established across the landscape, causing significant ecological and economic damage. Given the need for additional tools for reducing wild pig populations, two toxicants, warfarin and sodium nitrite, are at the forefront of the discussion regarding future wild pig management. However, no research has examined stakeholders’ perspectives towards the use of toxicants in wild pig management. Given the lack of knowledge, our goal was to determine stakeholders’ perspectives towards the legal use of toxicants for managing wild pigs. We surveyed 1822 individuals from three stakeholder groups (hunters, farmers, and forestland owners) across Alabama during February 2018 using an online survey following the Tailored Design Method. All three stakeholder groups were generally supportive of toxicant use, though their views differed slightly by group. Furthermore, all stakeholder groups were supportive of toxicant purchasing and use regulations, while accidental water contamination, human health impact, and incorrect usage of a toxicant were stakeholders’ greatest concerns. These results indicate that these groups would likely be in support of using toxicants for wild pig management in Alabama and could be a model for other states or locations. Consequently, these results have direct implications for shaping policy and possible use of toxicants as a future wild pig management tool.

Recreational (non-commercial) fishing licenses are used throughout the United States to contribute funding for the management of recreational fisheries and associated resources and help quantify participation. Non-commercial fishing license programs have aided habitat restoration and conservation, hatchery production, harvest regulations, education, and improving fishers overall experience and satisfaction with the resource. Contrastingly, Hawaiʻi is the only coastal US state that does not have a saltwater non-commercial fishing license program. The lack of a license program is problematic for several reasons, including its implications for baseline data regarding who or how many individuals utilize the resource. Given anecdotal information about recently changing fishers’ attitudes, the goal was to quantify knowledge, interest, and behavior of Hawaii's non-commercial fishing participants regarding the potential adoption of a state saltwater non-commercial fishing license. Specifically, under what circumstances would Hawaii's non-commercial fishing community support or not support a licensing program? Did the level of support and acceptance of a fishing license program vary with sociodemographic factors? Finally, what is an acceptable cost range for a license among Hawaii's non-commercial fishers? To answer these questions, an online survey of 101 self-identified non-commercial Hawai‘i fishers was conducted. The findings suggest that non-commercial fishers may support a fishing license program, but only if the funds generated from license fees are dedicated to improving the resource, particularly enforcement of current regulations. Correspondingly, a saltwater non-commercial fishing license costing between $11–19 was acceptable for 81% of survey participants. Our findings suggest provide a needed baseline on advancing fisheries management in Hawaiʻi.

Recent advancements in information technology and data acquisition have created both new research opportunities and new challenges for using big data in ornithology. We provide an overview of the past, present, and future of big data in ornithology, and explore the rewards and risks associated with their application. Structured data resources (e.g., North American Breeding Bird Survey) continue to play an important role in advancing our understanding of bird population ecology, and the recent advent of semistructured (e.g., eBird) and unstructured (e.g., weather surveillance radar) big data resources has promoted the development of new empirical perspectives that are generating novel insights. For example, big data have been used to study and model bird diversity and distributions across space and time, explore the patterns and determinants of broad-scale migration strategies, and examine the dynamics and mechanisms associated with geographic and phenological responses to global change. The appli...

Toxoplasmosis gondii exposure has been linked to increased impulsivity and risky behaviors, which has implications for eating behavior. Impulsivity and risk tolerance is known to be related with worse diets and a higher chance of obesity. There is little known, however, about the independent link between Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) exposure and diet-related outcomes. Using linear and quantile regression, we estimated the relationship between T. gondii exposure and BMI, total energy intake (kcal), and diet quality as measured by the Health Eating Index-2015 (HEI) among 9,853 adults from the 2009–2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Previous studies have shown different behavioral responses to T. gondii infection among males and females, and socioeconomic factors are also likely to be important as both T. gondii and poor diet are more prevalent among U.S. populations in poverty. We therefore measured the associations between T. gondii and diet-related outcomes separately for men and women and for respondents in poverty. Among females, Author summary Toxoplasmosis gondii (T. gondii) is a parasite that infects over 10 percent of the US population. T. gondii infection can cause serious health problems for some people, but most infections remain undiagnosed and subclinical. When an individual is infected, T. gondii can chronically reside in muscle and central nervous system (including brain) tissue. Previous studies have found that individuals with prior exposure to T. gondii may engage in more risky and impulsive behaviors, and risk tolerance and impulsivity may be related with individual’s diet. Our study examines whether individuals with T. gondii exposure have higher body mass index (BMI) and worse diets. We further discuss and test for alternative explanations that prevent us from establishing a causal relationship between T. gondii and BMI/diet. Overall, our results show that T. gondii exposure is related with higher BMI and worse diets among lower-income females in the US. Our results uncover a novel correlate of BMI and diets, and suggest the importance of investigating the broader public health impacts of chronic T. gondii infection.

Cities play important roles in the conservation of global biodiversity, particularly through the planning and management of urban green spaces (UGS). However, UGS management is subject to a complex assortment of interacting social, cultural, and economic factors, including governance, economics, social networks, multiple stakeholders, individual preferences, and social constraints. To help deliver more effective conservation outcomes in cities, we identify major challenges to managing biodiversity in UGS and important topics warranting further investigation. Biodiversity within UGS must be managed at multiple scales while accounting for various socioeconomic and cultural influences. Although the environmental consequences of management activities to enhance urban biodiversity are now beginning to be addressed, additional research and practical management strategies must be developed to balance human needs and perceptions while maintaining ecological processes.

Wildlife populations have been experiencing declines across western, central and eastern Africa. In Tanzania, a national wildlife policy was instituted in 1998 to increase protection of wildlife. We assessed (i) the extent to which large herbivore populations have continued to decline in density and distribution within three representative protected areas (PAs) since the implementation of the wildlife policy; (ii) how consistent rates of decline were among the PAs, and between inside the PAs or land bordering these PAs; and (iii) how similar changes in abundance have been among herbivore species or groupings of species. We used aerial census data from 1991 to 2012 for the Tarangire, Ruaha-Rungwa and Katavi-Rukwa PAs for our assessment. Population densities of three of six species or groupings of species dropped by 7.3 ± 3.4% to 11.7 ± 5.8% per year across the three PAs, both inside and outside. Similarly, the extent of the range occupied by these species or groupings in these PAs decreased by 92.3 ± 103.0% to 95.7 ± 102.6% per year. These patterns suggest that the wildlife policy has yet to achieve its aim of reversing the habitat changes and illegal harvests affecting these species.

Climate change is expected to have significant impacts on native, threatened and endangered wildlife. Understanding and modeling these impacts useful for wildlife managers, however, remain difficult due to complex climate change, and costly and high data requirements. Consequently, we proposed an easily-interpretable and data-efficient decision support approach to understand climate change impacts on the abundance of three endangered wetland birds (Hawaiian Stilt, Hawaiian Coot and Hawaiian Moorhen). We coupled a watershed model, AnnAGNPS, and ecological models using fuzzy-cognitive mapping software, Mental Modeler, in Hanalei watershed, Kauaźi. Results suggested that increased precipitation would increase Stilt abundance, but decrease Coot and Moorhen abundance. Decreasing precipitation might have negative effects for all three species. Moreover, decision-makers should pay equal attention to controlling components (water depth, food availability and disease) with system-wide influence. Finally, besides being adaptable to similar environmental contexts, our approach captured both direct and indirect climate change impacts through ecological connectivity. Proposed modeling framework is a potential decision-support tool for understanding local-scale climate change impacts.IPCC AR4 based climate change scenarios drove empirical watershed model, AnnAGNPS, simulations.Watershed dynamics functioned as scenarios for knowledge-driven ecological models of three wetland birds in Mental Modeler.Water depth, food availability and disease with system-wide influence would have profound impacts on bird abundance.Wildlife managers can use the tool in similar ecological contexts with even poor data, and easily interpret the results.

Simple Summary We provide a rebuttal to Wolf et al. (2019), outlining biological, ethical, and economic flaws in their argument that Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) is an ethical solution for stray cat management. We contend that suppression of supplementary feeding of stray cats accompanied by proactive adoption or prompt euthanasia is more effective, humane, and economical. Abstract We critique the recent article by Wolf et al. (2019) that claims scientific merit for reducing the number of stray cats in Australia through Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) programs, and then we provide an inventory of biological, welfare, and economic reasons why TNR is less successful than adoption and euthanasia for managing unowned cats. Like Crawford et al. (2019) and multiple other comprehensive and unbiased Australian and international scientific reviews, we refute the idea that returning neutered unowned cats to stray populations has any valid role in responsible, ethical, affordable, and effective cat management, or in wildlife conservation. The main purported objective of TNR proponents along with animal welfare, human health, and wildlife advocacy stakeholders is to reduce the number of unhomed cats. We contend that cessation of provisioning unowned cats with food is the most effective approach to achieve this objective. We also present evidence from the Brisbane City Council that informed cat management policy, advocacy, and laws, backed up by responsible rehoming or prompt ethical euthanasia, are together effective at reducing the stray cat problem.

A critical component of textbooks is fair representation of the material they cover. Within conservation biology, fair coverage is particularly important given Earth's breadth of species and diversity of ecosystems. However, research on species tends to be biased towards certain taxonomic groups and geographic areas and their associated ecosystems, so it is possible that textbooks may exhibit similar biases. Considering the possibility of bias, our goal was to evaluate contemporary conservation biology textbooks to determine if they are representative of Earth's biodiversity. We found that textbooks did not accurately reflect Earth's biodiversity. Species, ecosystems, and continents were unevenly represented, few examples mentioned genetic diversity, and examples of negative human influence on the environment outweighed positive examples. However, in terms of aquatic versus terrestrial representation, textbooks presented a representative sample. Our findings suggest that modern conservation biology textbooks are biased in their coverage, which could have important consequences for educating our next generation of scientists and practitioners.

Domestic cats (Felis catus) are a common household pet and also a notorious invasive species around the world. Because cat numbers have been increasing in many locations it is critical to work on management solutions that help to reduce threats posed by cats. With regard to cat behavior, one of the threats both to cats themselves and the species that they interact with is disease transmission. As part of a broader overview on applying cat behavior to management the focus of this review is to consider different types of cat behaviors and highlight how they relate to disease as a means to help inform management. Specifically, we focus on cat movement, foraging, and cat–human interactions as broad classes of cat behavior that can lead to acquisition and transmission of diseases. In addition, we review the diseases that are commonly harbored by cats, are of growing human health concern, and for which we have reasonable information. Finally, we review the main forms of cat management in order to provide a set of recommendations for use in addressing cat diseases.

Urbanization has altered many landscapes around the world and created novel contexts and interactions, such as the rural–urban interface. We sought to address how a forest patch’s location in the rural–urban interface influences which avian species choose to occur within the patch. We predicted a negative relationship between forest bird richness and urbanization surrounding the patch, but that it would be ameliorated by the area of tree cover in the patch and matrix, and that total tree-cover area would be more influential on forest bird species richness than area of tree cover in the focal patch alone. We conducted bird surveys in 44 forest patches over 2 years in Southeast Michigan and evaluated bird presence and richness relative to patch and matrix tree cover and development density. We observed 43 species, comprised of 21 Neotropical migrants, 19 residents, and three short-distance migrants. Focal-patch tree-cover area and the matrix tree-cover area were the predominant contributors to a site’s overall forest-bird species richness at the rural–urban interface, but the addition of percent of over-story vegetation and percentage of deciduous tree cover influenced the ability of the patches to support forest species, especially Neotropical migrants. Development intensity in the matrix was unrelated to species richness and only had an effect in four species models. Although small forest patches remain an important conservation strategy in developed environments, the influence of matrix tree cover suggests that landscape design decisions in surrounding matrix can contribute conservation value at the rural–urban interface.

Bushmeat management policies are often developed outside the communities in which they are to be implemented. These policies are also routinely designed to be applied uniformly across communities with little regard for variation in social or ecological conditions. We used fuzzy-logic cognitive mapping, a form of participatory modeling, to compare the assumptions driving externally generated bushmeat management policies with perceptions of bushmeat trade dynamics collected from local community members who admitted to being recently engaged in bushmeat trading (e.g., hunters, sellers, consumers). Data were collected during 9 workshops in 4 Tanzanian villages bordering Serengeti National Park. Specifically, we evaluated 9 community-generated models for the presence of the central factors that comprise and drive the bushmeat trade and whether or not models included the same core concepts, relationships, and logical chains of reasoning on which bushmeat conservation policies are commonly based. Across local communities, there was agreement about the most central factors important to understanding the bushmeat trade (e.g., animal recruitment, low income, and scarcity of food crops). These matched policy assumptions. However, the factors perceived to drive social-ecological bushmeat trade dynamics were more diverse and varied considerably across communities (e.g., presence or absence of collaborative law enforcement, increasing human population, market demand, cultural preference). Sensitive conservation issues, such as the bushmeat trade, that require cooperation between communities and outside conservation organizations can benefit from participatory modeling approaches that make local-scale dynamics and conservation policy assumptions explicit. Further, communities' and conservation organizations' perceptions need to be aligned. This can improve success by allowing context appropriate policies to be developed, monitored, and appropriately adapted as new evidence is generated.

Nearshore aquaculture siting requires the integration of a range of physical, environmental, and social factors. As a result, the information demand often presents coastal managers with a range of complex issues regarding where specific types of aquaculture should be ideally located that reduce environmental and social impacts. Here we provide a framework and tool for managers faced with these issues that incorporate physical and biological parameters along with geospatial infrastructure. In addition, the development of the tool and underlying data included was undertaken with careful input and consideration of local population concerns and cultural practices. Using Hawaiʻi as a model system, we discuss the various considerations that were integrated into an end-user tool for aquaculture siting.

Cultural ecosystem services (CES) substantially contribute to human wellbeing as the nonmaterial benefits of ecosystems. However, they remain poorly understood due to their often nonmarket and intangible nature. We analyzed management characteristics of coastal and watershed – based CES in contrast to provisioning and regulatory services from surveys of environmental managers in Hawaii. CES were the most frequently managed type of ecosystem service, a top management priority among local-scale decision-makers and nongovernmental organizations, and managed for security. However, only 10% of managers could articulate specific policies they used to manage CES. Follow-up interviews with a subset of managers further revealed that half of all CES managed were considered to benefit people beyond the spatial scale in which management decisions were made. Identifying management characteristics of CES will inform the development of indicators to monitor changes in CES, and develop policies that maintain the relationship between ecosystem function, CES and human wellbeing.

As people encroach increasingly on natural areas, one question is how this affects avian biodiversity. The answer to this is partly scale-dependent. At broad scales, human populations and biodiversity concentrate in the same areas and are positively associated, but at local scales people and biodiversity are negatively associated with biodiversity. We investigated whether there is also a systematic temporal trend in the relationship between bird biodiversity and housing development. We used linear regression to examine associations between forest bird species richness and housing growth in the conterminous United States over 30 years. Our data sources were the North American Breeding Bird Survey and the 2000 decennial U.S. Census. In the 9 largest forested ecoregions, housing density increased continually over time. Across the conterminous United States, the association between bird species richness and housing density was positive for virtually all guilds except ground nesting birds. We found a systematic trajectory of declining bird species richness as housing increased through time. In more recently developed ecoregions, where housing density was still low, the association with bird species richness was neutral or positive. In ecoregions that were developed earlier and where housing density was highest, the association of housing density with bird species richness for most guilds was negative and grew stronger with advancing decades. We propose that in general the relationship between human settlement and biodiversity over time unfolds as a 2-phase process. The first phase is apparently innocuous; associations are positive due to coincidence of low-density housing with high biodiversity. The second phase is highly detrimental to biodiversity, and increases in housing density are associated with biodiversity losses. The long-term effect on biodiversity depends on the final housing density. This general pattern can help unify our understanding of the relationship of human encroachment and biodiversity response.

Although wetland condition assessment procedures have been developed, validated, and calibrated in the continental United States, they have not yet been fully developed or field-tested for wetlands in Hawai‘i. In order to address the need for comprehensive assessment methods for Hawaiian coastal wetlands, our research compared three indicators of landscape condition (landscape development intensity, road density, and forest cover) with wetland condition as measured by rapid assessment methods (RAM) and detailed field data collected on soil and water quality. We predicted that wetlands located in the least developed landscapes would have more nutrient rich soils, yet lower nutrient levels in the surface water, and would receive the highest rapid assessment scores. The hypotheses of our study were generally supported. However, while the correlations between landscape variables and δ15N isotopes and CRAM scores were relatively strong, the correlations between the landscape indicators and the other Level II and III field indicators were not very strong. These results suggest that further calibration and refinement of metrics is needed in order to more accurately assess the condition of Hawaiian coastal wetlands. A more detailed land use map, in addition to more comprehensive assessments of wetland water quality and biotic integrity would likely improve the relationships between indicators of landscape condition and wetland condition. Nonetheless, our research demonstrated that landscape analysis at larger scales (1,000 m buffers and watersheds) could provide managers with valuable information on how regional stressors may be affecting wetland water quality (measured as δ15N in plant tissue) as well as overall wetland condition (RAM scores).

This article was originally published electronically on the publisher's internet portal (currently SpringerLink) on April 3, 2019 without open access.

Demography and ecology have long been intertwined in terms of understanding the relationships between population and the environment. Recent advances in data and technology, coupled with our increased understanding of social and ecological process, have greatly expanded the ability to link populations and ecosystems in order to understand their interrelationships. However, there remains a paucity of understanding of how climatic variability relates to the spatial patterning of people and how they may influence one another. Here we couple MODIS satellite estimates of interannual photosynthetic variability from 2000–2011 with housing density for the year 2000 to provide an estimate of the interaction between productivity dynamics and exurban influence at a 2 km resolution for the conterminous United States. The resultant map shows the convergence of population and climate influences on vegetation responses with broad patterns of interaction across the United States and notable extremes found throughout the ...

Numerous measures of human influence on the environment exist, but one that is of particular importance is houses as they can impact the environment from species through the landscape level. Furthermore, because the addition of houses represents an important component of landscape change, housing information could be used to assess ecological responses (e.g., decline in wildlife habitat) to that change. Recently developed housing density data represents a potential source of information to assess landscape and habitat change over long periods of time and at broad spatial extents, which is critically needed for conservation and management. Considering the potential value of housing data, our goal was to demonstrate how changes in the number of houses leads to changes in the amount of habitat across the landscape, and in-turn, how these habitat changes are likely to influence the distribution and abundance for a species of conservation concern, the Ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapillus). Using a relationship between Ovenbird abundance and housing density, we predict suitable habitat in the forests of Massachusetts (USA) from 1970 to 2030. Over this 60-year period, the number of houses was projected to increase from 1.84 to 3.32 million. This magnitude of housing growth translates into a 57 % decline in Ovenbird habitat (6,002 km2 to 2,616 km2), a minimum decline of ~850,000 (48 %) Ovenbirds, and an increase in the number of subpopulations across the landscape. Overall, housing data provide important information to robustly measure landscape and habitat change, and hence predict population change of a species. We suggest that time series of housing data linked to ecological responses (e.g., Ovenbird abundance) offers a novel and underutilized approach to estimating long-term and spatially broad predictions of ecosystem response to landscape change, which in turn can inform conservation and management.

The world’s population recently surpassed 7 billion and is predicted to reach 9.2 billion by 2050. Continued population growth will result in increased resource consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, enhancing the effects of climate change. Synergisms between population growth and climate change will therefore have substantial negative impacts on the environment. However, solutions to population growth are often absent within the context of climate change. To address this absence, we conducted a review of the primary scientific literature published between 1980 and 2011 using ISI Web of Knowledge to determine the major topics that have been discussed, the geographic scale at which these topics were addressed, what types of solutions were proposed, and whether or not these solutions were tractable. In particular, we quantified the portion of the literature that addressed population growth and climate change as synergistic issues. Of 1,438 papers addressing population growth and climate change, only 139 (~10%) included solutions. Among these 139 papers, the most frequent topics and solutions addressed the societal aspects of population growth and climate change. Land use/land cover change and greenhouse gas emissions were also frequently discussed, while changes in policy, economics, and science and technology were the most frequently offered solutions to population growth and climate change. Education, energy, and health, were the least discussed topics and the least mentioned as solutions. In addition, while topics were discussed on a global scale, actionable solutions were often regionally dependent and tailored to address either population growth or climate change as separate, unrelated topics. Importantly, the number of papers offering solutions increased significantly over time, with 46% published since 2008. These results suggest that while solutions to human population growth have seldom been discussed in the context of climate change, they are beginning to be considered in the literature, perhaps indicating an increased awareness of the interrelatedness of these issues.

Managing wildlife in a publically acceptable fashion is challenging and frequently results in conflict among stakeholders. Several methods of group decision making or decision-making models have been suggested by philosophers and applied scientists to address such conflict. We propose a modification to the data collection process for consensus convergence models (CCM) that may allow wildlife managers to incorporate the priorities of hundreds of stakeholders into management decisions. Previous CCM have relied on small focus groups that represent the broader community to supply data. We propose collecting data via surveys using rank-ordinal data, which will allow managers to assess the priorities of the broader community rather than relying on representatives. By using survey (especially electronic) data rather than focus groups CCM may be modified into a tool that provides informatic solutions to environmental management. Before the proposed modification of the CCM is applied to any wildlife management decisions, several questions pertaining to how various components of a CCM affect the prioritization of management options must be addressed. We used hypothetical CCM to assess how the number of stakeholders, viewpoints, and level of opposition between viewpoints influences the results of a CCM. We found that while the number of stakeholders alone does not influence the results, the number of unique viewpoints does influence the prioritization of management options. If only two extremely opposed groups of stakeholders are engaged in a conflict, CCM will not aid decision-making because the model forces the two sides to compromise and meet in the middle. If an intermediate group is added to the model, then the CCM will favor the intermediate viewpoint, as the diametrically opposed viewpoints balance out each other. CCM are vulnerable to outliers, which can be mitigated by a large sample of stakeholders. However, CCM also lose clarity as the sample size increases. Therefore, the number of stakeholders included in the model should be determined a priori by power analysis. We conclude that CCM are an advantageous tool for analyzing complicated conflict with numerous viewpoints because they can digest information from hundreds of stakeholders, but that investigators should take care to collect data from a representative sample of stakeholders, including under-represented stakeholders, to avoid problems associated with a forced consensus.

Coastal ecosystems around the world have deteriorated markedly due to anthropogenic impacts such as habitat alteration, resource extraction, pollution, and invasive species. Resource managers deal with these increasingly interrelated impacts as well as considerable uncertainty in scientific knowledge, funding and institutional priorities. Given that these issues can pose a serious impediment to sustainable management, information regarding manager perceptions relative to these challenges can be applied to improve the decisions of policy makers, funding agencies, and management entities. Our objectives will be tested in Hawai‘i as it is a unique system in need of study. Based upon the above considerations, the objectives of this study were to: 1) improve our understanding of who is tasked with managing coastal resources; 2) understand how managers perceive the system they are managing; and, 3) evaluate whether differences in perceptions exist across agencies and demographic attributes. Identified coastal resource managers (N = 87), hereafter referred to as managers, across Hawai‘i’s inhabited islands were surveyed in regards to coastal ecosystems. Respondents were predominately well educated Caucasian males, with state managers comprising the largest portion (50.9%), followed by non-governmental organizations (28.1%) and federal (19.3%). The largest perceived threat to Hawai‘i’s coasts were invasive species, while a lack of funding was the largest management challenge. Managers identified increasing resources, public understanding, and collaboration among agencies, as well as improving zoning and permitting as solutions to these challenges. Perceptions varied little across all respondents.

Spatial pattern metrics have routinely been applied to characterize and quantify structural features of terrestrial landscapes and have demonstrated great utility in landscape ecology and conservation planning. The important role of spatial structure in ecology and management is now commonly recognized, and recent advances in marine remote sensing technology have facilitated the application of spatial pattern metrics to the marine environment. However, it is not yet clear whether concepts, metrics, and statistical techniques developed for terrestrial ecosystems are relevant for marine species and seascapes. To address this gap in our knowledge, we reviewed, synthesized, and evaluated the utility and application of spatial pattern metrics in the marine science literature over the past 30 yr (1980 to 2010). In total, 23 studies characterized seascape structure, of which 17 quantified spatial patterns using a 2-dimensional patch-mosaic model and 5 used a continuously varying 3-dimensional surface model. Most seascape studies followed terrestrial-based studies in their search for ecological patterns and applied or modified existing metrics. Only 1 truly unique metric was found (hydrodynamic aperture applied to Pacific atolls). While there are still relatively few studies using spatial pattern metrics in the marine environment, they have suffered from similar misuse as reported for terrestrial studies, such as the lack of a priori considerations or the problem of collinearity between metrics. Spatial pattern metrics offer great potential for ecological research and environmental management in marine systems, and future studies should focus on (1) the dynamic boundary between the land and sea; (2) quantifying 3-dimensional spatial patterns; and (3) assessing and monitoring seascape change. Included in theme section, "Seascape ecology: application of landscape ecology to the marine environment"

Summary 1. Knowledge of species diversity across a landscape is essential for answering ecological questions and developing conservation and management goals and protocols. However, data on species occurrence are often limited, with the consequence that species lists are incomplete. 2. As a means to develop a complete species occurrence list for an urbanizing landscape in south-eastern Michigan, USA, all bird species accounts from four public and private organizations were integrated, and all officially documented rare birds added. A citizen science approach was then used to develop an independent species list from c. 1700 landowner surveys. 3. The specific goals of the research were to: (i) develop a complete list of species occurrence across a landscape; (ii) ascertain what percentage of the total species pool landowners could collectively identify; (iii) identify species that had not been noted in the census data sets but could be corroborated; (iv) compare the percentage overlap among different bird censuses; and (v) assess the potential value of casual (i.e. citizen science) records to bird distribution studies. 4. The resulting list comprised 318 individual bird species, which was 8·5% greater than any of the individual lists. Landowners identified 171 bird species ( c. 54%) and had > 50% overlap with all existing databases. In addition, landowners identified 10 species noted only in a single database of rare or vagrant species. The percentage overlap of species across the five different lists ranged from 35% to 66%, with the differences stemming largely from different protocols. Subsetting the data for one county within the landscape reduced the unique species to 294, which was approximately equivalent to the existing county species list. 5. Synthesis and applications . The findings highlight the value of surveying private landowners as a means of detecting species presence/absence in numerous inaccessible locations, and the important role landowners can play in providing species occurrence information. Similarly, the results indicate the need to use multiple data sources for establishing a list of potential species occurrence for the conservation and management of biological resources.

Rural populations both influence and are influenced by the environment. As a result, understanding the linkages between population and the environment has been a rich area of theory and research among both demographers and natural scientists for centuries. Today, this understanding is critical for advancing our knowledge and guiding decision making, policy, natural resource management, and conservation. Here we address these needs by considering how ecologists and demographers view the environment and how populations can influence the environment. To highlight the interrelationships between rural populations and the environment we present a case study demonstrating how housing growth serves as a proxy for demographic change and affects a species of conservation concern. Specifically, we detail the effects of housing growth in Massachusetts, USA from 1970 to 2030 and how it negatively affects Ovenbird populations in the rural forested landscapes of the state. While our results demonstrate important linkages between ecology and demography, it is also important to note that many challenges remain, such as climate change and a growing human population.