First preliminary inventory of Non-Flying Mammals of the Alto Fragua Indi-Wasi National Park, Colombia

The Andean-Amazon foothills represent a biodiversity hotspot in southern Colombia (Kattan et al. 2004, Bass et al. 2010) but deforestation in the region is occurring at an alarming rate (Hernández et al. 1992) and security problems have made access difficult. Biological surveys are needed in this region to document the local fauna and to help generate strategies to preserve it. In this study, we report the first preliminary inventory of large and medium-sized terrestrial mammals for the Alto Fragua Indi-Wasi National Park.Las estribaciones andino-amazónicas representan un punto crítico de biodiversidad en el sur de Colombia (Kattan et al. 2004, Bass et al. 2010) pero la deforestación en la región está ocurriendo a un ritmo alarmante (Hernández et al. 1992) y los problemas de seguridad han dificultado el acceso. Se necesitan estudios biológicos en esta región para documentar la fauna local y ayudar a generar estrategias para preservarla. En este estudio, informamos el primer inventario preliminar de mamíferos terrestres grandes y medianos para el Parque Nacional Alto Fragua Indi-Wasi

Megafauna extinctions produce idiosyncratic Anthropocene assemblages

The “trophic downgrading of planet Earth” refers to the systematic decline of the world’s largest vertebrates. However, our understanding of why megafauna extinction risk varies through time and the importance of site- or species-specific factors remain unclear. Here, we unravel the unexpected variability in remaining terrestrial megafauna assemblages across 10 Southeast Asian tropical forests. Consistent with global trends, every landscape experienced Holocene and/or Anthropocene megafauna extirpations, and the four most disturbed landscapes experienced 2.5 times more extirpations than the six least disturbed landscapes. However, there were no consistent size- or guild-related trends, no two tropical forests had identical assemblages, and the abundance of four species showed positive relationships with forest degradation and humans. Our results suggest that the region’s megafauna assemblages are the product of a convoluted geoclimatic legacy interacting with modern disturbances and that some megafauna may persist in degraded tropical forests near settlements with sufficient poaching controls

Southeast Asian protected areas are effective in conserving forest cover and forest carbon stocks compared to unprotected areas.

Protected areas aim to conserve nature, ecosystem services, and cultural values; however, they have variable success in doing so under high development pressure. Southeast Asian protected areas faced the highest level of human pressure at the turn of the twenty-first century. To estimate their effectiveness in conserving forest cover and forest carbon stocks for 2000-2018, we used statistical matching methods to control for the non-random location of protected areas, to compare protection against a matched counterfactual. We found Southeast Asian protected areas had three times less forest cover loss than similar landscapes without protection. Protected areas that had completed management reporting using the Management Effectiveness Tracking Tool (METT) conserved significantly more forest cover and forest carbon stocks than those that had not. Management scores were positively associated with the level of carbon emissions avoided, but not the level of forest cover loss avoided. Our study is the first to find that METT scores could predict the level of carbon emissions avoided in protected areas. Given that only 11% of protected areas in Southeast Asia had completed METT surveys, our results illustrate the need to scale-up protected area management effectiveness reporting programs to improve their effectiveness for conserving forests, and for storing and sequestering carbon

Tapping into non-English-language science for the conservation of global biodiversity.

The widely held assumption that any important scientific information would be available in English underlies the underuse of non-English-language science across disciplines. However, non-English-language science is expected to bring unique and valuable scientific information, especially in disciplines where the evidence is patchy, and for emergent issues where synthesising available evidence is an urgent challenge. Yet such contribution of non-English-language science to scientific communities and the application of science is rarely quantified. Here, we show that non-English-language studies provide crucial evidence for informing global biodiversity conservation. By screening 419,679 peer-reviewed papers in 16 languages, we identified 1,234 non-English-language studies providing evidence on the effectiveness of biodiversity conservation interventions, compared to 4,412 English-language studies identified with the same criteria. Relevant non-English-language studies are being published at an increasing rate in 6 out of the 12 languages where there were a sufficient number of relevant studies. Incorporating non-English-language studies can expand the geographical coverage (i.e., the number of 2° × 2° grid cells with relevant studies) of English-language evidence by 12% to 25%, especially in biodiverse regions, and taxonomic coverage (i.e., the number of species covered by the relevant studies) by 5% to 32%, although they do tend to be based on less robust study designs. Our results show that synthesising non-English-language studies is key to overcoming the widespread lack of local, context-dependent evidence and facilitating evidence-based conservation globally. We urge wider disciplines to rigorously reassess the untapped potential of non-English-language science in informing decisions to address other global challenges. Please see the Supporting information files for Alternative Language Abstracts

TRY plant trait database – enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits - the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants - determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait‐based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits - almost complete coverage for ‘plant growth form’. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait–environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

Recambio de especies en comunidades de árboles de tierras bajas en Colombia - efecto de variabilidad ambiental y distancia geográfica

ilustraciones, gráficosIncluye referencias bibliográficasMagíster en Ciencias BiológicasMaestrí

The enigmatic Black Tinamou: do distribution, climate, and vocalizations reveal more than one species?

The Black Tinamou (Tinamus osgoodi) is a rare species with 2 recognized subspecies distributed locally. This is one of the most poorly known tinamous; few sound recordings exist, and few behavioral or sighting records are found in the literature or in ornithological databases. We compiled all the information on its geographic distribution and climate to provide a greater understanding of its current distribution. We also compiled all available sound recordings of the species in order to perform bioacoustic analyses to evaluate differences between subspecies. The 2 subspecies seem to be isolated by an ample distance, and each inhabits an area with a distinct climate. We also found some differences between their vocalizations. Future work should consider reevaluating the taxonomic status of the 2 subspecies. Conservatio

Conservation planning for retention, not just protection.

Most protected area (PA) planning aims to improve biota representation within the PA system, but this does not necessarily achieve the best outcomes for biota retention across regions when we also consider habitat loss in areas outside the PA system. Here, we assess the implications that different PA expansion strategies can have on the retention of species habitat across an entire region. Using retention of forest habitat for Colombia's 550 forest-dependent bird species as our outcome variable, we found that when a minimum of 30% of each species' habitat was included in the PA system, a pattern of PA expansion targeting areas at highest deforestation risk (risk-prevention) led to the retention, on average, of 7.2% more forest habitat per species by 2050 than did a pattern that targeted areas at lowest risk (risk-avoidance). The risk-prevention approach cost more per km2 of land conserved, but it was more cost-effective in retaining habitat in the landscape (50%-69% lower cost per km2 of avoided deforestation). To have the same effectiveness preventing habitat loss in Colombia, the risk-avoidance approach would require more than twice as much protected area, costing three times more in the process. Protected area expansion should focus on the contributions of PAs to outcomes not only within PA systems themselves, but across entire regions

New ecological information for the Black Tinamou (Tinamus osgoodi hershkovitzi)

The Black Tinamou (Tinamus osgoodi) is a rare and endangered bird with two geographically disjunct subspecies. Very little pertinent information exists due to its secretive habits and cryptic coloration. Observations from a one-year study at Alto Fragua Indi Wasi National Park in southern Colombia have provided new ecological information for T. o. hershkovitzi. This subspecies vocalizes mostly between March and April, suggesting that the breeding season occurs during the first half of the year. Detections by camera traps indicate that this tinamou is more active in late morning, a pattern also found in other lowland tinamous. The subspecies was found in the entire study area, but more commonly at middle altitudes (1,400-1,600 m). We estimated a density of 13.47 birds km(-2), which is relatively high compared with the abundance of other tinamous of similar size. Despite the locally observed high density of this subspecies of Black Tinamou, high rates of logging and hunting in the area make this population vulnerable to rapid decline in the future