In order to support rare species, we need to understand the threats to them. To identify the threats faced by non-breeding Spotted (Nordmann's) Greenshank Tringa guttifer we visited coastal sites throughout the Gulf of Thailand. The Inner Gulf of Thailand supports approximately 20–30% of the East Asian-Australasian Flyway global population of 1,500–2,000 Spotted Greenshanks. Identifying the specific threats they face in this area is therefore critical to develop measures to prevent further decline. We assessed the conservation situation at four ‘hotspots’ for Spotted Greenshank, areas supporting >1% of the global population. We identified three major threats: habitat loss, disturbance, and illegal netting. Each of these threats require place-based management interventions if long-term conservation of Spotted Greenshank, and other EAAF waterbirds, is to be accomplished.
File: WS-1313-Maleko.pdf
Aim: On-the-ground conservation efforts require managers to balance various and sometimes conflicting conservation goals. For instance, areas important for conserving threatened and endangered species may have little spatial agreement with high functional redundancy. Using prioritization tools can further complicate conservation prioritizations if conflicting diversity metrics identify different high-priority areas. We compared five community-level diversity metrics for birds across the conterminous US to identify how much agreement existed between each before and after using a prioritization framework. Location: Contiguous US. Methods: We examined spatial agreement among metrics before (a priori) and after (a posteriori) prioritization using integer linear programming. We compared a posteriori outputs for 10% and 30% conservation goals. We also assessed data layer correlation and agreement (i.e., overlap) a priori and a posteriori. Results: As expected, the a priori diversity metrics were poorly to moderately correlated (median = 0.31, range = 0.11–0.71), but all a posteriori solutions had areas of agreement. Accordingly, our a posteriori metrics identified different areas as high priority for conservation, none aligning well with the current protected areas (mean = 13%–15% agreement). However, the a posteriori approach allowed us to include a continuity constraint (identify adjacent important pixels) and easily find areas of high-priority agreement. Main Conclusions: Metric agreement depended on a priori or a posteriori evaluation, highlighting managers' challenges when deciding where and how to enact conservation. Given these challenges, a posteriori solutions best support multiple-objective, complex and large planning conservation problems. Importantly, all of our a posteriori maps agreed in areas, suggesting aggregates of several metrics could instill certainty in decision-making if prioritization solutions were obtained at different times. Overall, our results underscore the critical importance of generating maps and metrics useful for on-the-ground management, carefully selecting biodiversity metrics that best reflect conservation goals and employing prioritization software for generating conservation solutions.
File: Diversity-and-Distributions-2025-Carroll-Biodiversity-Metric-Selection-and-Their-Applications-for-Spatial.pdf
Habitat loss and fragmentation in tropical regions are major threats to the persistence of endangered Malay tapir (Tapirus indicus). The Malay tapir distribution is largely constrained to fragmented habitats inside protected areas. However, it is unclear how the spatial patterns of habitat fragmentation affect its relative abundance. Here, we investigated the effects of habitat fragmentation on Malay tapir relative abundance in Thailand. We first quantified the spatial patterns of habitat fragmentation within nine of Thailand’s protected areas. Second, we assessed the relationship of fragmentation metrics and relative abundance of Malay tapirs. Third, we identified the relative importance of the fragmentation metrics in explaining relative abundance. We found that tapir abundance remained unexpectedly high in the Southern forest complex despite the fact that tapir habitats were significantly more fragmented there than in the protected area in the western forest complex (p < 0.05). Additionally, we found a significantly negative relation with clumpiness index (R2 = 0.51, p < 0.05). This suggests that other factors may also be influencing their populations, so that the Southern protected areas provide preferred habitat with higher relative proportions of moist evergreen forest, large habitat patch size, precipitation, and elevation. It highlights the importance of interconnected habitat for tapirs, and the benefit of conservation efforts in small, less recognized protected areas.
File: Suwannaphong-s2.0-S2351989424003901-main.pdf
Remote sensing data are important for assessing ecological change, but their value is often restricted by their limited temporal coverage. Major historical events that affected the environment, such as those associated with colonial history, World War II, or the Green Revolution are not captured by modern remote sensing. In the present article, we highlight the potential of globally available black-and-white satellite photographs to expand ecological and conservation assessments back to the 1960s and to illuminate ecological concepts such as shifting baselines, time-lag responses, and legacy effects. This historical satellite photography can be used to monitor ecosystem extent and structure, species’ populations and habitats, and human pressures on the environment. Even though the data were declassified decades ago, their use in ecology and conservation remains limited. But recent advances in image processing and analysis can now unlock this research resource. We encourage the use of this opportunity to address important ecological and conservation questions.
File: biae002.pdf
As land use intensifies globally, it increasingly exerts pressure on protected areas. Despite open, nonforested landscapes comprising up to 40% of protected areas globally, assessments have predominately focused on forests, overlooking the major pressures on rangelands from livestock overgrazing and land conversion. Across the southern Caucasus, a biodiversity hotspot extending over 5 countries, we conducted a broadscale assessment of the extent to which protected areas mitigate land-use pressure on rangelands in them. Using satellite-based indicators of rangeland vegetation greenness from 1988 to 2019, we assessed the effectiveness of 52 protected areas. This period encompassed the collapse of the Soviet Union, economic crises, armed conflicts, and a major expansion of the protected area network.We applied matching statistics combined with fixed-effects panel regressions to quantify the effectiveness of protected areas in curbing degradation as indicated by green vegetation loss. Protected areas were, overall, largely ineffective. Green vegetation loss was higher inside than outside protected areas in most countries, except for Georgia and Turkey. Multiple-use protected areas (IUCN categories IV–VI) were even more ineffective in reducing vegetation loss than strictly protected areas (I & II), highlighting the need for better aligning conservation and development targets in these areas. Mapping >10,000 livestock corrals from satellite images showed that protected areas with a relatively high density of livestock corrals had markedly high green vegetation loss. Ineffectiveness appeared driven by livestock overgrazing. Our key finding was that protected areas did not curb rangeland degradation in the Caucasus. This situation is likely emblematic of many regions worldwide, which highlights the need to incorporate degradation and nonforest ecosystems into effectiveness assessments.
File: Conservation-Biology-2024-Ghoddousi-Effectiveness-of-protected-areas-in-the-Caucasus-Mountains-in-preventing.pdf
Species distribution models are vital to management decisions that require understanding habitat use patterns, particularly for species of conservation concern. However, the production of distribution maps for individual species is often hampered by data scarcity, and existing species maps are rarely spatially validated due to limited occurrence data. Furthermore, community-level maps based on stacked species distribution models lack important community assemblage information (e.g., competitive exclusion) relevant to conservation. Thus, multispecies, guild, or community models are often used in conservation practice instead. To address these limitations, we aimed to generate fine-scale, spatially continuous, nationwide maps for species represented in the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) between 1992and 2019. We developed ensemble models for each species at three spatial resolutions—0.5, 2.5, and 5 km—across the conterminous United States. We also compared species richness patterns from stacked single-species models with those of 19 functional guilds developed using the same data to assess the similarity between predictions. We successfully modeled 192 bird species at5-km resolution, 160 species at 2.5-km resolution, and 80 species at 0.5-kmresolution. However, the species we could model represent only 28%–56% of species found in the conterminous US BBSs across resolutions owing to data limitations. We found that stacked maps and guild maps generally had high correlations across resolutions (median = 84%), but spatial agreement varied regionally by resolution and was most pronounced between the East and West at the 5-km resolution. The spatial differences between our stacked maps and guild maps illustrate the importance of spatial validation in conservation planning. Overall, our species maps are useful for single-species conservation and can support fine-scale decision-making across the United States and support community-level conservation when used in tandem with guild maps.
File: Ecological-Applications-2023-Carroll-Mapping-multiscale-breeding-bird-species-distributions-across-the-United-States.pdf
There is ongoing debate among conservationists regarding the value of small habitat patches to sustain wild populations in farmlands. Our goal was to assess bird abundance in riparian forests differing in terms of size, configuration, landscape conditions and degradation level, to both inform the debate and to identify conservation strategies to maintain diverse agricultural landscapes. We conducted bird point-counts in 91 sites in 2016 across an agricultural valley in Chile. Using models that accounted for imperfect detection, we assessed variation in bird densities in riparian forests with different sizes and configuration, landscapes, and habitat characteristics. We found support in univariates models for our prediction that bird densities varied across riparian forest of various sizes and configuration for 10 of 16 bird species. However, when we added landscape and habitat characteristics to the model, we found that the densities of many of the birds were best explained by forest cover around their local (1 ha) and broader (50 ha) landscape combined with forests characteristics (e.g., invasive tree abundance). For example, Black-throated huet-huet and Chucao Tapaculo were positively associated with forest cover at the broader landscape (50 ha), but showed no response to number of patches, patch-size and Euclidean distance. Our results showed no evidence of negative fragmentation effect per se (i.e., after controlling for habitat area). While agricultural landscapes provide habitat for some species that use small forest patches, conservation strategies focusing on maintaining high level of forest cover and native vegetation are required to secure populations of forest affiliated species.
File: Rojas_et_all_BioConservation_2024_Riparian_forest_patches.pdf
Protected areas are cornerstones of conservation efforts worldwide. However, protected areas do not act in isolation because they are connected with surrounding, unprotected lands. Few studies have evaluated the effects of protected areas on wildlife populations inhabiting private lands in the surrounding landscapes. The lowland tapir Tapirus terrestris is the largest terrestrial mammal of the Neotropics and is categorized as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. It is necessary to understand the influence of landscape characteristics on the tapir’s habitat use to enable effective conservation management for this species. Our objectives were to () determine the potential distribution of the lowland tapir’s habitat in the Southern Yungas of Argentina, and () evaluate the role of protected areas and other covariates on tapir habitat use in adjacent private lands. We used records of lowland tapirs to model the species’ potential distribution and determined habitat use with occupancy modelling. Based on the covariates found to be significant in our models, we constructed predictive maps of probability of habitat use and assessed the area of potential habitat remaining for the species. Probability of habitat use was higher in the vicinity of two national parks and small households than further away from them. We found that in % of the lowland tapir’s potential distribution the probability of habitat use is high (..). These areas are near the three national parks in the study area. The probability of detecting lowland tapirs increased with distance to roads. We conclude that national parks play a key role in the persistence of lowland tapir populations on adjacent private lands.
File: Rivera-et-al-2021_National-Parks-influence-habitat-use-of-lowland-tapirs_Southern-Yungas-of-Argentina.pdf
Medium- and large-sized mammals play important roles in maintaining forest ecosystem functions, and these functions often diminish when mammal species are depleted by human activities. Understanding the sensitivity or tolerance of mammal species to human pressure and detecting species changes through monitoring programs can inform appropriate management decisions. The objective of our study was to identify medium- and large-sized mammal species that can be included in a monitoring programein the Southern Yungas of Argentina. We used occupancy modelling to estimate the probability of habitat use (ψ) of 13 of 25 mammal species detected by 165 camera traps placed in forests across a range of human footprint index (HFI) values. As defined by the HFI, 54% of the study area is wilderness. The probabilities of habitat use of two mammal species were significantly associated with the HFI: the lowland tapir (Tapirus terrestris; ψ = 0.33, range = 0.22–0.50) was inversely associated with HFI values, whereas the grey brocket deer (Mazama gouazoubira; ψ = 0.79, range = 0.67–0.87) was positively associated with the HFI. Monitoring the probability of habitat use of the sensitive species (lowland tapir) could help us to detect changes in areas experiencing anthropogenic impacts before they cause extirpation, whereas the high probability of the habitat use values of the tolerant species (grey brocket deer) might indicate that anthropogenic impacts are strongly influencing habitat, signaling that mitigation strategies might be warranted. The Southern Yungas retains an intact mammal fauna, and we showed that the HFI is useful for monitoring anthropogenic impacts on these mammals. There are still opportunities to develop conservation strategies to minimize threats to mammal species in the region by implementing a monitoring program with the proposed species.
File: Bardavid-et-al_2024_Identifying-mammal-species-sensitive-to-anthropogenic-impact_Environmental-Conservation.pdf
The Global Deal for Nature sets an ambitious goal to protect 30% of Earth’s land and ocean by 2030. The 30×30 initiative is a way to allocate conservation resources and extend protection to conserve vulnerable and under protected ecosystems while reducing carbon emissions to combat climate change. However, most prioritization methods for identifying high-value conservation areas are based on thematic attributes and do not consider vertical habitat structure. Global tall forests represent a rare vertical habitat structure that harbors high species richness in various taxonomic groups and is associated with large amounts of aboveground biomass. Global tall forests should be prioritized when planning global protected areas toward reaching the 30×30 goals. We examined the spatial distribution of global tall forests based on the Global Canopy Height 2020 product. We defined global tall forests as areas with the average canopy height above 3 thresholds (20, 25, and30 m). We quantified the spatial distribution and protection level of global tall forests in high-protection zones, where the 30×30 goals are being met or are within reach, and low-protection zones, where there is a low chance of reaching 30×30 goals. We quantified the protection level by computing the percentage of global tall forest area protected based on the 2017 World Database on Protected Areas. We also determined the global extent and protection level of undisturbed, mature, tall forests based on the 2020 Global Intact Forest Landscapes mask. In most cases, the percentage of protection decreased as forest height reached the top strata. In the low-protection zones,<30% of forests were protected in almost all tall forest strata. In countries such as Brazil, tall forests had a higher per-centage of protection (consistently>30%) compared to forests of lower height, presenting a more effective conservation model than in countries such as the United States, where forest protection was almost uniformly<30% across height strata. Our results show an urgent need to target forest conservation in the greatest height strata, particularly in high-protection areas, where most global tall forests are found. Vegetation vertical structure can inform the decision-making process toward the 30×30 goals because it can be used to identify areas of high conservation value for biodiversity protection which also contribute to carbon sequestration.
File: Conservation-Biology-2023-Huang-Prioritizing-global-tall-forests-toward-the-30-30-goals.pdf