Rethinking Habitat Occupancy Modeling and the Role of Diel Activity in an Anthropogenic World

Current methods to model species habitat use through space and diel time are limited. Development of such models is critical when considering rapidly changing habitats where species are forced to adapt to anthropogenic change, often by shifting their diel activity across space. We use an occupancy modeling framework to specify the multistate diel occupancy model (MSDOM), which can evaluate species diel activity against continuous response variables that may impact diel activity within and across seasons or years. We used two case studies, fosas in Madagascar and coyotes in Chicago, Illinois, to conceptualize the application of this model and to quantify the impacts of human activity on species spatial use in diel time. We found support that both species varied their habitat use by diel states—in and across years and by human disturbance. Our results exemplify the importance of understanding animal diel activity patterns and how human disturbance can lead to temporal habitat loss. The MSDOM will allow more focused attention in ecology and evolution studies on the importance of the short temporal scale of diel time in animal-habitat relationships and lead to improved habitat conservation and management

Exploring and interpreting spatiotemporal interactions between native and invasive carnivores across a gradient of rainforest degradation

Studies of elusive carnivores often rely on passive sampling when investigating either spatial or temporal interactions. However, inference on behavioral mechanisms are usually lacking. We present an analysis that combines previously published spatial co-occurrence estimates and temporal kernel density estimates to explore spatiotemporal interspecific interactions. We do so by deriving a spatiotemporal value (STV) that is a relative measure of potential interaction in both niche dimensions, across a gradient of degradation, for rainforest carnivore pairs in Madagascar. We also use a conceptual framework to provide insight into the potential behavioral mechanisms of habitat selection. Of the six native and three invasive carnivores, we estimate the spatiotemporal interactions for twelve pairings, which range from no spatial/temporal relationship (n = 5) to spatiotemporal aggregation or segregation (n = 7). We visualized these spatiotemporal interactions along a fragmentation gradient and demonstrate that these interactions are not static, as STV overlap increases with increasing anthropogenic disturbance. Of the three invasive carnivores (free-ranging dogs Canis familiaris, cats Felis species, and small Indian civets Viverricula indica) the latter had the highest number of spatial occurrence (n = 4) and spatiotemporal overlap (n = 4) relationships with native carnivores. Our results highlight the potential for increasing direct and indirect interactions between native and invasive species as forest degradation and invasive predators increase. Our approach allows us to better understand adaptive behaviors, plasticity in temporal activity, community assemblage, and to develop targeted conservation strategies to manage ecological communities in rapidly changing ecosystems

Socio-ecological gap analysis to forecast species range contractions for conservation

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-MGeospatial approaches are increasingly vital for conservation with applications of gap analysis informing decision-making and resource allocation. We extend traditional assessments by incorporating both the spatial distribution of threats and resources to build an index of available conservation capacity across a species' range. Using 91 African carnivores, we identified locations within each species' range at risk of contraction due to a deficit of resources available to potentially thwart present threats. Our results raise new concerns for African carnivores, particularly small-bodied species, contrary to current perceptions of their extinction risks. Conservation requires both a needs assessment and prioritization scheme for planning and implementation. Range maps are critical for understanding and conserving biodiversity, but current range maps often omit content, negating important metrics of variation in populations and places. Here, we integrate a myriad of conditions that are spatially explicit across distributions of carnivores to identify gaps in capacity necessary for their conservation. Expanding on traditional gap analyses that focus almost exclusively on quantifying discordance in protected area coverage across a species' range, our work aggregates threat layers (e.g., drought, human pressures) with resources layers (e.g., protected areas, cultural diversity) to identify gaps in available conservation capacity (ACC) across ranges for 91 African carnivores. Our model indicated that all species have some portion of their range at risk of contraction, with an average of 15 percentage range loss. We found that the ACC differed based on body size and taxonomy. Results deviated from current perceptions of extinction risks for species with an International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) threat status of Least Concern and yielded insights for species categorized as Data Deficient. Our socio-ecological gap analysis presents a geospatial approach to inform decision-making and resource allocation in conservation. Ultimately, our work advances forecasting dynamics of species' ranges that are increasingly vital in an era of great socio-ecological change to mitigate human-wildlife conflict and promote inclusive carnivore conservation across geographies

Mobilising Knowledge: Determining key elements for success and pitfalls in developing Community Based Tourism

Community based tourism (CBT) has often been cited as an alternative to mass tourism and an approach for tourism to become more sustainable. If developed well, CBT can become a poverty alleviation mechanism and a way to access improvements in quality of life, providing empowerment and greater economic benefit to individuals in local communities. Despite the plethora of literature on CBT and evaluation of models, there is little analysis of the facilitators and barriers to achieving it. Through the use of case studies in both academic and grey literature, this paper serves as an instructive review of the CBT literature to synthesise the key elements of success and the challenges

March Mammal Madness and the power of narrative in science outreach.

March Mammal Madness is a science outreach project that, over the course of several weeks in March, reaches hundreds of thousands of people in the United States every year. We combine four approaches to science outreach - gamification, social media platforms, community event(s), and creative products - to run a simulated tournament in which 64 animals compete to become the tournament champion. While the encounters between the animals are hypothetical, the outcomes rely on empirical evidence from the scientific literature. Players select their favored combatants beforehand, and during the tournament scientists translate the academic literature into gripping "play-by-play" narration on social media. To date ~1100 scholarly works, covering almost 400 taxa, have been transformed into science stories. March Mammal Madness is most typically used by high-school educators teaching life sciences, and we estimate that our materials reached ~1% of high-school students in the United States in 2019. Here we document the intentional design, public engagement, and magnitude of reach of the project. We further explain how human psychological and cognitive adaptations for shared experiences, social learning, narrative, and imagery contribute to the widespread use of March Mammal Madness

Threading the needle: How humans influence predator–prey spatiotemporal interactions in a multiple-predator system

Perceived predation risk and the resulting antipredator behaviour varies across space, time and predator identity. Communities with multiple predators that interact and differ in their use of space, time of activity and hunting mode create a complex landscape for prey to avoid predation. Anthropogenic presence and disturbance have the potential to shift interactions among predators and prey and the where and when encounters occur. We examined how white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus fawn spatiotemporal antipredator behaviour differed along an anthropogenic disturbance gradient that had black bears Ursus americanus, coyotes Canis latrans, bobcats Lynx rufus and humans present. We quantified (a) spatial co-occurrence in species distributions, (b) temporal overlap across the diel cycle and (c) spatiotemporal associations between humans, bears, coyotes, bobcats, adult male deer and fawns. We also examined how deer vigilance behaviour changed across the anthropogenic disturbance gradient and survey duration. Anthropogenic disturbance influenced spatiotemporal co-occurrence across multiple scales, often increasing spatiotemporal overlap among species. In general, species’ spatial co-occurrence was neutral or positive in anthropogenically disturbed environments. Bears and fawns, coyotes and adult male deer, and bobcats and fawns all had higher temporal overlap in the agriculture-development matrix sites. In addition, factors that influenced deer vigilance (e.g. distance to forest edge and predator relative abundance) in the agriculture-development matrix sites did not in the forest matrix site. By taking into account the different antipredator behaviours that can be detected and the different scales these behaviours might occur, we were able to gain a more comprehensive picture of how humans reduce available niche space for wildlife, creating the neutral and positive spatiotemporal associations between species that studies have been seeing in more disturbed areas

Giving and Identity: Why Affluent Australians Give - or Don't - To Community Causes

The trend to affluence in Australia is noteworthy. There are more Australian millionaires than ever before and the rate at which Australians are joining this group is one of the fastest in the world, with average assets held now worth US$4.1m, nudging the world’s average of US$4.8m (Merrill Lynch and Capgemini 2005). This is positive news for the community sector because the Giving Australia household survey indicates that Australia’s affluent are more likely give to community causes than those on lower incomes and are more likely to give more (PMCBP 2005). This trend is reflected in analyses of tax deductions claimed for charitable giving (McGregor-Lowndes and Marsden 2006). This paper presents the findings of qualitative research conducted as part of the Giving Australia project describing why affluent donors give - or don’t - to community causes. Findings from eight focus groups and eight in-depth interviews with affluent individuals suggest that giving by the affluent at lower levels may be linked to a sense of identity and responsibility within social groups, as well as the perceived worthiness of both the cause and recipient organisations. In contrast, major donor behaviour appeared to be linked to passion and personal commitment to social change. A range of barriers were also indicated such as a need for privacy and concerns about the capacity of community organisations. Overall, the study’s findings add to the understanding of giving behaviour by the affluent in Australia and confirm US findings that motivations for affluent donors are complex (for example, Boris 1987; Prince and File 1994; Schervish 2005; Johnson 2005)