Advanced survey effort required to obtain bat assemblage data in temperate woodlands (Chiroptera)

There is a lack of precise guidelines concerning the survey effort required for advanced bat surveys in temperate European woodlands, resulting in a lack of standardisation in survey methods. In this study we assess catch data from 56 bat trapping surveys at 11 UK woodland sites in order to provide recommendations for mist net survey effort required to gain meaningful bat assemblage data in temperate woodlands. Species accumulation curves were produced and were used to develop two novel values for survey effort: the minimum survey threshold (MST), whereby surveyors are more likely than not to encounter less dominant species; and the known species threshold (KST), the point where a given percentage (in our case, 75%) of the known species assemblage for a site is likely to be reached and beyond which there are diminishing returns for survey effort. For our data, the mean of MST was 17.4 net hours, and for KST, the mean was 29.8 net hours. The MST and KST values were reached during the second and third surveys, respectively. These proposed values are adaptable based on location and known species assemblage and may be used for planning advanced bat surveys in temperate woodlands not only to maximise survey efficacy and use of limited resources but to ensure ethical viability of undertaking advanced surveys in the first place.Published onlin

Elo-rating for Tracking Rank Fluctuations after Demographic Changes Involving Semi-free-ranging Rhesus Macaques (Macaca mulatta)

Rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) are gregarious primates that form despotic societies characterized by frequent and intense aggression. Within long-term social groups, demographic changes may influence hierarchical stability, potentially resulting in conflict and violently abrupt hierarchical changes. This conflict can result in serious implications for animal welfare, and thus, predictive tools would be invaluable to captive managers in determining social instabilities. Using the method Elo-rating to track rank changes and dominance stability, we predicted that demographic changes to a population of semi-free ranging rhesus macaques would result in changes in hierarchical stability. Over a 3 y period, dominance data were recorded on all troop members to track the hierarchy. Throughout the 3 y, significant changes occurred to the population (mainly due to health and colony management reasons; no changes specifically occurred for this study) including permanent removal of a large group of natal males, temporary and permanent removal of top-ranking females, and depositions of top-ranking families. Our retrospective study suggests that removing natal males was beneficial in promoting overall troop stability (that is, stability of dominance relationships), although remaining males opportunistically attempted to increase in rank, perhaps due to limited competition. Our results also suggest that removing top-ranking females, even temporarily, destabilized dominance relationships; consequently adjacently ranked females opportunistically increased in Elo-rating, both before and after the depositions of the α families. Thus, these challenges to the established hierarchy can be predicted by increases in Elo-rating within the β families after demographic changes to the α families. Our results suggest that the presence of natal males and the removal of top-ranking females should be minimized to maintain stable dominance relationships. In addition, longitudinal data reflecting dominance ranks, collected by using Elo-rating, may help managers of captive colonies in predicting dominance instabilities before they occur

Impact of joint interactions with humans and social interactions with conspecifics on the risk of zooanthroponotic outbreaks among wildlife populations.

Pandemics caused by pathogens that originate in wildlife highlight the importance of understanding the behavioral ecology of disease outbreaks at human-wildlife interfaces. Specifically, the relative effects of human-wildlife and wildlife-wildlife interactions on disease outbreaks among wildlife populations in urban and peri-urban environments remain unclear. We used social network analysis and epidemiological Susceptible-Infected-Recovered models to simulate zooanthroponotic outbreaks, through wild animals' joint propensities to co-interact with humans, and their social grooming of conspecifics. On 10 groups of macaques (Macaca spp.) in peri-urban environments in Asia, we collected behavioral data using event sampling of human-macaque interactions within the same time and space, and focal sampling of macaques' social interactions with conspecifics and overall anthropogenic exposure. Model-predicted outbreak sizes were related to structural features of macaques' networks. For all three species, and for both anthropogenic (co-interactions) and social (grooming) contexts, outbreak sizes were positively correlated to the network centrality of first-infected macaques. Across host species and contexts, the above effects were stronger through macaques' human co-interaction networks than through their grooming networks, particularly for rhesus and bonnet macaques. Long-tailed macaques appeared to show intraspecific variation in these effects. Our findings suggest that among wildlife in anthropogenically-impacted environments, the structure of their aggregations around anthropogenic factors makes them more vulnerable to zooanthroponotic outbreaks than their social structure. The global features of these networks that influence disease outbreaks, and their underlying socio-ecological covariates, need further investigation. Animals that consistently interact with both humans and their conspecifics are important targets for disease control

Impact of individual demographic and social factors on human-wildlife interactions: a comparative study of three macaque species.

Despite increasing conflict at human-wildlife interfaces, there exists little research on how the attributes and behavior of individual wild animals may influence human-wildlife interactions. Adopting a comparative approach, we examined the impact of animals' life-history and social attributes on interactions between humans and (peri)urban macaques in Asia. For 10 groups of rhesus, long-tailed, and bonnet macaques, we collected social behavior, spatial data, and human-interaction data for 11-20 months on pre-identified individuals. Mixed-model analysis revealed that, across all species, males and spatially peripheral individuals interacted with humans the most, and that high-ranking individuals initiated more interactions with humans than low-rankers. Among bonnet macaques, but not rhesus or long-tailed macaques, individuals who were more well-connected in their grooming network interacted more frequently with humans than less well-connected individuals. From an evolutionary perspective, our results suggest that individuals incurring lower costs related to their life-history (males) and resource-access (high rank; strong social connections within a socially tolerant macaque species), but also higher costs on account of compromising the advantages of being in the core of their group (spatial periphery), are the most likely to take risks by interacting with humans in anthropogenic environments. From a conservation perspective, evaluating individual behavior will better inform efforts to minimize conflict-related costs and zoonotic-risk