A roadmap to meaningful dingo conservation

Many top-predators are declining and/or threatened, risking the loss of them and their important ecological roles. For these reasons, conservation efforts are a management priority for many species, but this is not presently the case for dingoes – the most closely related canid to grey wolves. There is strong support for dingo conservation from some sectors, but dingo conservation progress is slow, and is actively opposed by other sectors. Here, we evaluate the conservation status of Australian dingoes in accordance with the current Australian Government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee Guidelines for assessing the conservation status of native species according to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Regulations 2000. We also use the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) species translocation guidelines to assess the value of translocation or reintroduction as suitable conservation action for dingoes. We further describe six socio-ecological facts about dingoes seldom considered in discourses advocating dingo conservation, and show that consideration of these guidelines and facts raises several substantial barriers to dingo conservation. Perhaps the most important barrier to dingo conservation is the lack of an accepted taxonomic definition for dingoes which, we show, ultimately determines the threatened status (or not) of dingoes and the acceptability (or not) of reintroduction as a suitable action for advancing dingo conservation objectives. We describe the actions required to overcome this barrier in an attempt to advance dingo conservation efforts from just ‘talking about it’ to actually ‘doing something about it’

Building an Interdisciplinary Research Program in Water Conservation: Approach, Preliminary Findings, and Next Steps

Effective urban water conservation programs must harness a synergy of new technologies, public policies, social cost pricing, information dissemination, citizen engagement, and coordinated actions across decision making scales. Together, these factors affect the volume of water an individual user ultimately saves and the overall success of a conservation program or programs. Over the past 18 months, we have started building an interdisciplinary research program in urban water conservation to quantify and assess the effects of these interconnected factors to motivate citizen engagement. We have interviewed water utility managers and conservation coordinators across the state of Utah, held focus groups with different water user groups, and tested our ability to recruit households into a future, multi-year water conservation study. Preliminary results suggest: Nearly all households we recruited agreed to enroll in the future study; Differences in enrollment were statistically insignificant across the different methods we used to interact with participants; and, Participants expressed interest in a broad range of information, technology, financial, and community conservation programs. In developing our research program, we have also identified the importance of: Broadly conceiving motivators, contexts, and scales (e.g. household or community) that may influence water use and conservation behavior; Developing integrated cyber-infrastructure and computing capabilities to collect and organize data, process it into site-specific, contextualized information, share it as feedback with participants, and subsequently measure its effects; Differentiating household capacity to conserve (comparing water use to need) from stated willingness-to-conserve and conservation actions; Involving household participants as collaborators through participatory action research; Training and delegating responsibilities to graduate student researchers; and, Collaborating with local water utilities. We are pursuing funding to run a large, multi-year study that will allow us to investigate the separate and cumulative effects of various water conservation programs on household water use. As part of the study, we also seek to test whether presenting households with estimates of their capacity to conserve can effectively motivate willingness-toconserve and conservation actions. The study will elucidate the contextualized factors that shape residential water use and people’s conservation actions

Analysis of the Functionality, Value and Constraints of Using Camera Traps for Wildlife Monitoring and Ecological Research

Adoption of camera trapping as a survey method by wildlife practitioners is increasing at warp speed. The technique is now widely cited in the published scientific literature and it has quickly become an important and widely used method in wildlife research, wildlife monitoring, and citizen science. Camera traps have largely been developed as a tool satisfying the demands of a very large hunting industry in North America. Until recently, the needs of ecologists and wildlife enthusiasts had been second to those in pursuit of hunting trophies, and as such many camera trap models failed the litmus test for fauna surveillance. The magnitude of these limitations has not been adequately recognised by practitioners and has led to the adoption of the technique without full understanding of the constraints of the sampling tool. In this dissertation I aimed to highlight and resolve some of the pitfalls that practitioners face when sampling wildlife using camera traps. I provide a historical context summarising how methods have developed over the last decade and tried to redress some of the ongoing problems identified in the camera trap literature. To this end I provide advice and guidelines to help camera trap practitioners design studies, implement sampling and reporting on their findings. However, the main focus of my research has been to address the differences between camera trap models and brands, the biases of the equipment, the effects of placement and orientation on detection, the challenges of identification and species in photographs, and have instigated the development of computer assisted technologies that will revolutionise how wildlife researchers analyse camera trap image data. I have also used my research to provide constructive design advice to camera trap manufacturers to encourage better designs to suit the needs of wildlife practitioners. Recommendations are provided on what practitioners would consider the features of an ultimate camera trap design that have led to the development of two new models of camera traps, and modifications to existing models

Quantifying effects of wild dogs, domestic dogs and humans on the spread of rabies in Australia

Rabies is a preventable viral zoonosis that causes inflammation of the brain, and eventually death, in infected mammals. With few exceptions, including Australia, terrestrial rabies can be found worldwide. More than 55,000 deaths from rabies infection are reported annually; these are mainly in Asia and Africa where the primary reservoir is the domestic dog. Despite ongoing control efforts in Indonesia, canine rabies remains a disease of critical concern there. Although rabies is not endemic in Australia, at less than 300km away in Indonesia, a rabies incursion is a likely and imminent threat. To improve preparedness for a canine rabies outbreak in Australia, I collected data on a number of extant dog populations in northern and eastern Australia. I used a range of methods including self-administered questionnaires, GPS telemetry collars, camera trapping and mark-recapture studies. Using my own data and parameters collected from the wider literature, I developed state-transition models to determine how rabies could spread through these dog populations. Finally, I used these same models to evaluate a range of control strategies, including dog removal and vaccination, to identify the most effective options for reducing impacts in Australian communities following a rabies incursion. Model outputs suggested that rabies will progress differently within functionally different dog populations present within Australia. Restrained domestic dogs posed limited risk for rabies transmission, because interactions with other dogs were limited and generally supervised by owners. Free-roaming domestic and hunting dogs will likely play an important role in rabies transmission in some situations only, primarily based on their ability to roam, access to other free-roaming dogs and their interactions within and between dog groups. Wild dogs (including dingoes) proved the most critical type of dog for rabies spread and maintenance in Australia, because they are widely distributed, often in high abundance, roam over large distances and frequently interact. I found that time to detection for rabies in wild dogs will likely be lengthy, probably due to low infection rates prior to an epidemic and limited contact with humans, relative to the other categories of dog that I studied. Further, the capacity of authorities to implement effective control strategies for wild dogs will likely be restricted because of limited access to individual animals. The economic costs of controlling a rabies outbreak involving wild dogs will be substantial and likely equivalent to the costs for extensive aerially-based wild dog control that are currently used in some areas of Australia (~Aus$34 km-2). Australia’s current plans to address rabies incursions, which were developed in the 1990s are clearly outdated. My findings reveal that revision of these plans, taking specific account of relevant differences between restrained domestic dogs, free-roaming domestic dogs and extensive wild dog populations is necessary to ensure that Australia is adequately prepared for the arrival of canine rabies

Rabies disease dynamics in naȉve dog populations in Australia

Currently, Australia is free from terrestrial rabies but an incursion from nearby Indonesia, where the virus is endemic, is a feasible threat. Here, we aimed to determine whether the response to a simulated rabies incursion would vary between three extant Australian dog populations; free-roaming domestic dogs from a remote indigenous community in northern Australia, and free-roaming domestic and wild dogs in peri-urban areas of north-east New South Wales. We further sought to predict how different management strategies impacted disease dynamics in these populations. We used simple stochastic state-transition models and dog demographic and contact rate data from the three dog populations to simulate rabies spread, and used global and local sensitivity analyses to determine effects of model parameters. To identify the most effective control options, dog removal andvaccination strategies were also simulated. Responses to simulated rabies incursions varied between the dog populations. Free-roaming domestic dogs from north-east New South Wales exhibited the lowest risk for rabies maintenance and spread. Due to low containment and high contact rates, rabies progressed rapidly through free-roaming dogs from the remote indigenous community in northern Australia. In contrast, rabies remained at relatively low levels within the north-east New South Wales wild dog population for over a year prior to an epidemic. Across all scenarios, sensitivity analyses revealed that contact rates and the probability of transmission were the most important drivers of the number of infectious individuals within a population. The number of infectious individuals was less sensitive to birth and death rates. Removal of dogs as a control strategy was not effective for any population modelled, while vaccination rates in excess of 70% of the population resulted in significant reductions in disease progression. The variability in response between these distinct dog groups to a rabies incursion, suggests that a blanket approach to management would not be effective or feasible to control rabies in Australia. Control strategies that take into account the different population and behavioural characteristics of these doggroups will maximise the likelihood of effective and efficient rabies control in Australia

Kepler-93b: A Terrestrial World Measured to within 120 km, and a Test Case for a New Spitzer Observing Mode

We present the characterization of the Kepler-93 exoplanetary system, based on three years of photometry gathered by the Kepler spacecraft. The duration and cadence of the Kepler observations, in tandem with the brightness of the star, enable unusually precise constraints on both the planet and its host. We conduct an asteroseismic analysis of the Kepler photometry and conclude that the star has an average density of 1.652+/-0.006 g/cm^3. Its mass of 0.911+/-0.033 M_Sun renders it one of the lowest-mass subjects of asteroseismic study. An analysis of the transit signature produced by the planet Kepler-93b, which appears with a period of 4.72673978+/-9.7x10^-7 days, returns a consistent but less precise measurement of the stellar density, 1.72+0.02-0.28 g/cm^3. The agreement of these two values lends credence to the planetary interpretation of the transit signal. The achromatic transit depth, as compared between Kepler and the Spitzer Space Telescope, supports the same conclusion. We observed seven transits of Kepler-93b with Spitzer, three of which we conducted in a new observing mode. The pointing strategy we employed to gather this subset of observations halved our uncertainty on the transit radius ratio R_p/R_star. We find, after folding together the stellar radius measurement of 0.919+/-0.011 R_Sun with the transit depth, a best-fit value for the planetary radius of 1.481+/-0.019 R_Earth. The uncertainty of 120 km on our measurement of the planet's size currently renders it one of the most precisely measured planetary radii outside of the Solar System. Together with the radius, the planetary mass of 3.8+/-1.5 M_Earth corresponds to a rocky density of 6.3+/-2.6 g/cm^3. After applying a prior on the plausible maximum densities of similarly-sized worlds between 1--1.5 R_Earth, we find that Kepler-93b possesses an average density within this group.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Anthropogenic resource subsidies determine space use by Australian arid zone dingoes: an improved resource selection modelling approach

Dingoes (Canis lupus dingo) were introduced to Australia and became feral at least 4,000 years ago. We hypothesized that dingoes, being of domestic origin, would be adaptable to anthropogenic resource subsidies and that their space use would be affected by the dispersion of those resources. We tested this by analyzing Resource Selection Functions (RSFs) developed from GPS fixes (locations) of dingoes in arid central Australia. Using Generalized Linear Mixed-effect Models (GLMMs), we investigated resource relationships for dingoes that had access to abundant food near mine facilities, and for those that did not. From these models, we predicted the probability of dingo occurrence in relation to anthropogenic resource subsidies and other habitat characteristics over ∼ 18,000 km(2). Very small standard errors and subsequent pervasively high P-values of results will become more important as the size of data sets, such as our GPS tracking logs, increases. Therefore, we also investigated methods to minimize the effects of serial and spatio-temporal correlation among samples and unbalanced study designs. Using GLMMs, we accounted for some of the correlation structure of GPS animal tracking data; however, parameter standard errors remained very small and all predictors were highly significant. Consequently, we developed an alternative approach that allowed us to review effect sizes at different spatial scales and determine which predictors were sufficiently ecologically meaningful to include in final RSF models. We determined that the most important predictor for dingo occurrence around mine sites was distance to the refuse facility. Away from mine sites, close proximity to human-provided watering points was predictive of dingo dispersion as were other landscape factors including palaeochannels, rocky rises and elevated drainage depressions. Our models demonstrate that anthropogenically supplemented food and water can alter dingo-resource relationships. The spatial distribution of such resources is therefore critical for the conservation and management of dingoes and other top predators

Can we save large carnivores without losing large carnivore science?

Large carnivores are depicted to shape entire ecosystems through top-down processes. Studies describing these processes are often used to support interventionist wildlife management practices, including carnivore reintroduction or lethal control programs. Unfortunately, there is an increasing tendency to ignore, disregard or devalue fundamental principles of the scientific method when communicating the reliability of current evidence for the ecological roles that large carnivores may play, eroding public confidence in large carnivore science and scientists. Here, we discuss six interrelated issues that currently undermine the reliability of the available literature on the ecological roles of large carnivores: (1) the overall paucity of available data, (2) reliability of carnivore population sampling techniques, (3) general disregard for alternative hypotheses to top-down forcing, (4) lack of applied science studies, (5) frequent use of logical fallacies, and (6) generalisation of results from relatively pristine systems to those substantially altered by humans. We first describe how widespread these issues are, and given this, show, for example, that evidence for the roles of wolves (Canis lupus) and dingoes (Canis lupus dingo) in initiating trophic cascades is not as strong as is often claimed. Managers and policy makers should exercise caution when relying on this literature to inform wildlife management decisions. We emphasise the value of manipulative experiments, and discuss the role of scientific knowledge in the decision-making process. We hope that the issues we raise here prompt deeper consideration of actual evidence, leading towards an improvement in both the rigour and communication of large carnivore science

Large carnivore science: non-experimental studies are useful, but experiments are better

1. Response to Bruskotter and colleagues We recently described the following six interrelated issues that justify questioning some of the discourse about the reliability of the literature on the ecological roles of large carnivores (Allen et al., in press): 1. The overall paucity of available data, 2. The reliability of carnivore population sampling techniques, 3. The general disregard for alternative hypotheses to top-down forcing, 4. The lack of applied science studies, 5. The frequent use of logical fallacies, 6. The generalisation of results from relatively pristine systems to those substantially altered by humans. We thank Bruskotter et al. (2017) for responding to our concerns and engaging with this important issue. We agree completely that nonexperimental studies can and do often have great value, and we recognize that in many (most) cases these types of studies may provide the only data that are available. We acknowledge the many challenges of working on large, cryptic, dangerous, and highly-mobile animals in the wild. However, the absence of more robust data and the reality of these challenges do not excuse weak inference or overstating conclusions – a practice apparent in many studies (and communication of those studies) adopting only observational or correlative methods to infer the roles of large carnivores (reviewed in Allen et al., in press)

A large-scale automated radio telemetry network for monitoring movements of terrestrial wildlife in Australia

Technologies for remotely observing animal movements have advanced rapidly in the past decade. In recent years, Australia has invested in an Integrated Marine Ocean Tracking (IMOS) system, a land ecosystem observatory (TERN), and an Australian Acoustic Observatory (A2O), but has not established movement tracking systems for individual terrestrial animals across land and along coastlines. Here, we make the case that the Motus Wildlife Tracking System, an open-source, rapidly expanding cooperative automated radio-tracking global network (Motus, https://motus.org) provides an unprecedented opportunity to build an affordable and proven infrastructure that will boost wildlife biology research and connect Australian researchers domestically and with international wildlife research. We briefly describe the system conceptually and technologically, then present the unique strengths of Motus, how Motus can complement and expand existing and emerging animal tracking systems, and how the Motus framework provides a much-needed central repository and impetus for archiving and sharing animal telemetry data. We propose ways to overcome the unique challenges posed by Australia’s ecological attributes and the size of its scientific community. Open source, inherently cooperative and flexible, Motus provides a unique opportunity to leverage individual research effort into a larger collaborative achievement, thereby expanding the scale and scope of individual projects, while maximising the outcomes of scant research and conservation funding