A framework to guide the conservation of species hybrids based on ethical and ecological considerations

Species hybrids have long been undervalued in conservation and are often perceived as a threat to pure species. Recently, the conservation value of hybrids, especially those of natural origin, has gained recognition; however, hybrid conservation remains controversial. We reviewed hybrid management policies, including laws, regulations, and management protocols, from a variety of organizations, primarily in Canada and the United States. We found that many policies are based on limited ethical and ecological considerations and provide little opportunity for hybrid conservation. In most policies, hybrids are either unrepresented or considered a threat to conservation goals. This is problematic because our review of the hybrid conservation literature identified many ethical and ecological considerations relevant to determining the conservation value of a hybrid, all of which are management‐context specific. We also noted a lack of discussion of the ethical considerations regarding hybrid conservation. Based on these findings, we created a policy framework outlining situations in which hybrids could be eligible for conservation in Canada and the United States. The framework comprises a decision tree that helps users determine whether a hybrid should be eligible for conservation based on multiple ecological and ethical considerations. The framework may be applied to any hybrid and is flexible in that it accommodates context‐specific management by allowing different options if a hybrid is a threat to or could benefit conservation goals. The framework can inform policy makers and conservationists in decision‐making processes regarding hybrid conservation by providing a systematic set of decision criteria and guidance on additional criteria to be considered in cases of uncertainty, and it fills a policy gap that limits current hybrid management.     

Spatiotemporal trends of illegal activities from ranger‐collected data in a Ugandan national park

Within protected areas, biodiversity loss is often a consequence of illegal resource use. Understanding the patterns and extent of illegal activities is therefore essential for effective law enforcement and prevention of biodiversity declines. We used extensive data, commonly collected by ranger patrols in many protected areas, and Bayesian hierarchical models to identify drivers, trends, and distribution of multiple illegal activities within the Queen Elizabeth Conservation Area (QECA), Uganda. Encroachment (e.g., by pastoralists with cattle) and poaching of noncommercial animals (e.g., snaring bushmeat) were the most prevalent illegal activities within the QECA. Illegal activities occurred in different areas of the QECA. Poaching of noncommercial animals was most widely distributed within the national park. Overall, ecological covariates, although significant, were not useful predictors for occurrence of illegal activities. Instead, the location of illegal activities in previous years was more important. There were significant increases in encroachment and noncommercial plant harvesting (nontimber products) during the study period (1999–2012). We also found significant spatiotemporal variation in the occurrence of all activities. Our results show the need to explicitly model ranger patrol effort to reduce biases from existing uncorrected or capture per unit effort analyses. Prioritization of ranger patrol strategies is needed to target illegal activities; these strategies are determined by protected area managers, and therefore changes at a site‐level can be implemented quickly. These strategies should also be informed by the location of past occurrences of illegal activity: the most useful predictor of future events. However, because spatial and temporal changes in illegal activities occurred, regular patrols throughout the protected area, even in areas of low occurrence, are also required.     

Setting conservation management thresholds using a novel participatory modeling approach

We devised a participatory modeling approach for setting management thresholds that show when management intervention is required to address undesirable ecosystem changes. This approach was designed to be used when management thresholds: must be set for environmental indicators in the face of multiple competing objectives; need to incorporate scientific understanding and value judgments; and will be set by participants with limited modeling experience. We applied our approach to a case study where management thresholds were set for a mat‐forming brown alga, Hormosira banksii, in a protected area management context. Participants, including management staff and scientists, were involved in a workshop to test the approach, and set management thresholds to address the threat of trampling by visitors to an intertidal rocky reef. The approach involved trading off the environmental objective, to maintain the condition of intertidal reef communities, with social and economic objectives to ensure management intervention was cost‐effective. Ecological scenarios, developed using scenario planning, were a key feature that provided the foundation for where to set management thresholds. The scenarios developed represented declines in percent cover of H. banksii that may occur under increased threatening processes. Participants defined 4 discrete management alternatives to address the threat of trampling and estimated the effect of these alternatives on the objectives under each ecological scenario. A weighted additive model was used to aggregate participants’ consequence estimates. Model outputs (decision scores) clearly expressed uncertainty, which can be considered by decision makers and used to inform where to set management thresholds. This approach encourages a proactive form of conservation, where management thresholds and associated actions are defined a priori for ecological indicators, rather than reacting to unexpected ecosystem changes in the future.     

Long‐term spatio‐temporal changes in a West African bushmeat trade system

Landscapes in many developing countries consist of a heterogeneous matrix of mixed agriculture and forest. Many of the generalist species in this matrix are increasingly traded in the bushmeat markets of West and Central Africa. However, to date there has been little quantification of how the spatial configuration of the landscape influences the urban bushmeat trade over time. As anthropogenic landscapes become the face of rural West Africa, understanding the dynamics of these systems has important implications for conservation and landscape management. The bushmeat production of an area is likely to be defined by landscape characteristics such as habitat disturbance, hunting pressure, level of protection, and distance to market. We explored (SSG, tense) the role of these four characteristics in the spatio‐temporal dynamics of the commercial bushmeat trade around the city of Kumasi, Ghana, over 27 years (1978 to 2004). We used geographic information system methods to generate maps delineating the spatial characteristics of the landscapes. These data were combined with spatially explicit market data collected in the main fresh bushmeat market in Kumasi to explore the relationship between trade volume (measured in terms of number of carcasses) and landscape characteristics. Over time, rodents, specifically cane rats (Thryonomys swinderianus), became more abundant in the trade relative to ungulates and the catchment area of the bushmeat market expanded. Areas of intermediate disturbance supplied more bushmeat, but protected areas had no effect. Heavily hunted areas showed significant declines in bushmeat supply over time. Our results highlight the role that low intensity, heterogeneous agricultural landscapes can play in providing ecosystem services, such as bushmeat, and therefore the importance of incorporating bushmeat into ecosystem service mapping exercises. Our results also indicate that even where high bushmeat production is possible, current harvest levels may cause wildlife depletion.     

Using a choice experiment and birder preferences to guide bird‐conservation funding

Conservation of biodiversity, including birds, continues to challenge natural‐area managers. Stated‐preference methods (e.g., choice experiment [CE]) are increasingly used to provide data for valuation of natural ecosystems. We used a CE to calculate birders’ willingness to pay for different levels of bioecological attributes (threatened species, endemic species, and diversity) of birding sites with hypothetical entry fees. The CE was delivered at popular birding and avitourism sites in Australia and the United Kingdom. Latent‐class modeling results revealed heterogeneous preferences among birders and correspondingly variable willingness to pay. Four clear groups were apparent: quantity‐driven birders, special‐birds seekers, confused respondents, and price‐is‐no‐object birders. Quantity‐driven birders were attracted to sites that deliver high levels of diversity and endemic species for which they were willing to pay $135 and $66 to visit, respectively, above what they were willing to pay to visit a site with low levels of diversity and few endemic and threatened species . Special‐bird seekers valued threatened species and high levels of endemic species most (willingness to pay $45 and $46, respectively). Confused respondents’ preferences were difficult to determine, but they were the most sensitive to the hypothetical entry fees, unlike the price‐is‐no‐object birders, who were not at all sensitive to cost. Our findings demonstrate that birders are amenable to paying for their preferred birding experience. These payments could provide an alternative source of funding in some avitourism sites on both public and private land. Such alternative revenue streams should be explored and given full consideration in increasingly competitive conservation‐financing environments.     

A global assessment of the social and conservation outcomes of protected areas

Protected areas (PAs) are a key strategy for protecting biological resources, but they vary considerably in their effectiveness and are frequently reported as having negative impacts on local people. This has contributed to a divisive and unresolved debate concerning the compatibility of environmental and socioeconomic development goals. Elucidating the relationship between positive and negative social impacts and conservation outcomes of PAs is key for the development of more effective and socially just conservation. We conducted a global meta‐analysis on 165 PAs using data from 171 published studies. We assessed how PAs affect the well‐being of local people, the factors associated with these impacts, and crucially the relationship between PAs’ conservation and socioeconomic outcomes. Protected areas associated with positive socioeconomic outcomes were more likely to report positive conservation outcomes. Positive conservation and socioeconomic outcomes were more likely to occur when PAs adopted comanagement regimes, empowered local people, reduced economic inequalities, and maintained cultural and livelihood benefits. Whereas the strictest regimes of PA management attempted to exclude anthropogenic influences to achieve biological conservation objectives, PAs that explicitly integrated local people as stakeholders tended to be more effective at achieving joint biological conservation and socioeconomic development outcomes. Strict protection may be needed in some circumstances, yet our results demonstrate that conservation and development objectives can be synergistic and highlight management strategies that increase the probability of maximizing both conservation performance and development outcomes of PAs.     

Improving credibility and transparency of conservation impact evaluations through the partial identification approach

The fundamental challenge of evaluating the impact of conservation interventions is that researchers must estimate the difference between the outcome after an intervention occurred and what the outcome would have been without it (counterfactual). Because the counterfactual is unobservable, researchers must make an untestable assumption that some units (e.g., organisms or sites) that were not exposed to the intervention can be used as a surrogate for the counterfactual (control). The conventional approach is to make a point estimate (i.e., single number along with a confidence interval) of impact, using, for example, regression. Point estimates provide powerful conclusions, but in nonexperimental contexts they depend on strong assumptions about the counterfactual that often lack transparency and credibility. An alternative approach, called partial identification (PI), is to first estimate what the counterfactual bounds would be if the weakest possible assumptions were made. Then, one narrows the bounds by using stronger but credible assumptions based on an understanding of why units were selected for the intervention and how they might respond to it. We applied this approach and compared it with conventional approaches by estimating the impact of a conservation program that removed invasive trees in part of the Cape Floristic Region. Even when we used our largest PI impact estimate, the program's control costs were 1.4 times higher than previously estimated. PI holds promise for applications in conservation science because it encourages researchers to better understand and account for treatment selection biases; can offer insights into the plausibility of conventional point‐estimate approaches; could reduce the problem of advocacy in science; might be easier for stakeholders to agree on a bounded estimate than a point estimate where impacts are contentious; and requires only basic arithmetic skills.     

Effectiveness of management zoning designed for flagship species in protecting sympatric species

Flagship species have been used widely as umbrella species (i.e., species with large home range whose protection often provides protection for sympatric species) in the management of China's nature reserves. This conflation of flagship and umbrella species is best represented by the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) and other large, endangered mammals designated as conservation targets in site selection and planning of reserves. Few empirical studies have tested the effectiveness of flagship species as surrogates for a broader range of sympatric species. Using extensive camera-trap data, we examined the effectiveness of management zones designated to protect flagship (target) species in conserving sympatric species in 4 wildlife reserves (Gutianshan, Changqing, Laohegou, and Wolong). We tested whether the progression from peripheral to core zones was associated with an increasing habitat association for both target and sympatric species. The distribution patterns of the study species across the zones in each reserve indicated a disparity between management zones and the species’ habitat requirements. Management zone was included in the final model for all target species, and most of them had higher occurrence in core zones relative to less-protected zones, but zone was not a predictor for most of the sympatric species. When management zone was associated with the occurrence of sympatric species, threatened species generally had higher detections in core zones, whereas common species had higher detections outside of the core zone. Our results suggested that reserve planning based on flagship species does not adequately protect sympatric species due to their specialized habitat requirements. We recommend re-examining the effectiveness of management zoning and urge a multispecies and reserve-wide monitoring plan to improve protection of China's wildlife.     

Long‐Range Movement of Humpback Whales and Their Overlap with Anthropogenic Activity in the South Atlantic Ocean

Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) are managed by the International Whaling Commission as 7 primary populations that breed in the tropics and migrate to 6 feeding areas around the Antarctic. There is little information on individual movements within breeding areas or migratory connections to feeding grounds. We sought to better understand humpback whale habitat use and movements at breeding areas off West Africa, and during the annual migration to Antarctic feeding areas. We also assessed potential overlap between whale habitat and anthropogenic activities. We used Argos satellite‐monitored radio tags to collect data on 13 animals off Gabon, a primary humpback whale breeding area. We quantified habitat use for 3 cohorts of whales and used a state‐space model to determine transitions in the movement behavior of individuals. We developed a spatial metric of overlap between whale habitat and models of cumulative human activities, including oil platforms, toxicants, and shipping. We detected strong heterogeneity in movement behavior over time that is consistent with previous genetic evidence of multiple populations in the region. Breeding areas for humpback whales in the eastern Atlantic were extensive and extended north of Gabon late in the breeding season. We also observed, for the first time, direct migration between West Africa and sub‐Antarctic feeding areas. Potential overlap of whale habitat with human activities was the highest in exclusive economic zones close to shore, particularly in areas used by both individual whales and the hydrocarbon industry. Whales potentially overlapped with different activities during each stage of their migration, which makes it difficult to implement mitigation measures over their entire range. Our results and existing population‐level data may inform delimitation of populations and actions to mitigate potential threats to whales as part of local, regional, and international management of highly migratory marine species. Cuantificación de los Movimientos de Gran Amplitud y el Traslape Potencial con Actividad Antropogénica y las Ballenas Jorobadas en el Océano Atlántico Sur