Parasitized mates increase infection risk for partners

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Modelling Hen Harrier Dynamics to Inform Human-Wildlife Conflict Resolution : A Spatially-Realistic, Individual-Based Approach

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Patterns of satellite tagged hen harrier disappearances suggest widespread illegal killing on British grouse moors

Natural England commenced a Hen Harrier Recovery Project in 2002. This tracking study was funded exclusively by Natural England and is part of their on-going work on hen harrier conservation. We thank Hamish Smith and staff at the Hawk and Owl Trust for contributing data from four hen harriers they have tracked. We are grateful for the time of many volunteers in the field who monitored and searched for harriers: Pat Martin, Gavin Craggs, Pete Davies, Derek Hayward, Martin Davison, Mick Carroll, Paul Howarth, Ian Thomson, and Elsie Ashworth. We thank Judith Smith and Phil Skinner for sponsoring tags. Also we would like to thank the Wildlife Crime Officers in Lancashire, Yorkshire, Co Durham and Northumberland for their assistance. Thanks also to Jeremy Wilson and Pat Thompson for useful comments on this manuscript. We are grateful to staff at Microwave Telemetry Inc. and CLS France for data archiving. The complete data sets analysed in this study are not publicly available due to the sensitivity of the locational data but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request and with permission of Natural England. The source data for Figs. 1 and 2 have been provided as a Source Data file.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Colonization and extinction dynamics of a declining migratory bird are influenced by climate and habitat degradation

Uncovering the mechanisms involved in the decline of long-distance migrants remains one of the most pressing issues in European conservation. Since the 1980s, the British breeding population of Garden Warbler Sylvia borin has declined by more than 25%. Here we use data from repeated bird surveys of woodland sites in the 1980s and in 2003-2004 to show that, although the overall population declined between the two periods, the probability of occupancy for this species increased at high latitudes and decreased at low latitudes. Range shifts such as this arise from a change in the ratio of colonizations to extinctions at the range margins, and we therefore related colonization and local extinction at the patch level to concurrent changes in temperature and habitat. The probability of patch colonization by this species was significantly lower where the percentage cover of vegetation in the understorey had declined, reducing habitat quality for this species. The probability of local extinction was significantly correlated with increasing mean May temperature, which may reflect a change in phenology, making breeding conditions less suitable. Changed regimes of grazing and woodland management could be used to increase habitat suitability and thereby increase colonization probability at the local scale, which may in turn increase the probability of patch occupancy despite future climatic unsuitability

Experimentally manipulating the landscape of fear to manage problem animals

We thank A. M. Clemo and H. J. Chalmers of Raptor Force for allowing us to observe their falconry activities. We thank F. M. Fazey, F. S. Morling, and S. K. Abdu for their field assistance. We thank the golf course managers for access to the courses and support throughout the study, in particular W. A. Hill. Funding for the project was received from the Department of Science and Technology-National Research Foundation (DST-NRF) Centre of Excellence fund, University of Cape Town.Peer reviewedPostprin

The functional response of a generalist predator

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Impact of wild prey availability on livestock predation by snow leopards

The fieldwork was supported by Fondation Segré-Whitley Fund for Nature, Conservation Leadership Programme and National Geographic Young Explorer fund. These grants supported K.R.S., Y.V.B. and C.M. Laboratory analysis was supported by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. This grant supported U.R., V.C., Y.V.B., K.R.S. and C.M. Data Dryad Repository. (http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.8p689)An increasing proportion of the world’s poor is rearing livestock today, and the global livestock population is growing. Livestock predation by large carnivores and their retaliatory killing is becoming an economic and conservation concern. A common recommendation for carnivore conservation and for reducing predation on livestock is to increase wild prey populations based on the assumption that the carnivores will consume this alternative food. Livestock predation, however, could either reduce or intensify with increases in wild prey depending on prey choice and trends in carnivore abundance. We show that the extent of livestock predation by the endangered snow leopard Panthera uncia intensifies with increases in the density of wild ungulate prey, and subsequently stabilizes. We found that snow leopard density, estimated at seven sites, was a positive linear function of the density of wild ungulates—the preferred prey—and showed no discernible relationship with livestock density. We also found that modelled livestock predation increased with livestock density. Our results suggest that snow leopard conservation would benefit from an increase in wild ungulates, but that would intensify the problem of livestock predation for pastoralists. The potential benefits of increased wild prey abundance in reducing livestock predation can be overwhelmed by a resultant increase in snow leopard populations. Snow leopard conservation efforts aimed at facilitating increases in wild prey must be accompanied by greater assistance for better livestock protection and offsetting the economic damage caused by carnivores.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

The cascading impacts of livestock grazing in upland ecosystems: a 10-year experiment

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank The Woodland Trust, Scotland for permission to use the Glen Finglas Estate. Sally Burgess, Timothy Conner, Charlie Gardner, Ian Joyce,Fi Leckie, Elaine McEwan, Ruth Mitchell, Gabor Pozsgai, Gina Prior and others assisted with the collection and sorting of samples at different stages of the project. S. M. Redpath, R. J. Pakeman, P. Dennis and D. M. Evans designed the study; D. M. Evans, N.Villar, N. A. Littlewood, S. A. Evans and J. Skartveit collected the data; D. M. Evans and N. Villar analyzed the data; D. M. Evans and N. Villar co-wrote as joint-first authors the first draft of the manuscript, and all authors contributed substantially to revisions.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Associations between abundances of free-roaming gamebirds and common buzzards Buteo buteo are not driven by consumption of gamebirds in the buzzard breeding season

Releasing gamebirds in large numbers for sport shooting may directly or indirectly influence the abundance, distribution and population dynamics of native wildlife. The abundances of generalist predators have been positively associated with the abundance of gamebirds. These relationships have implications for prey populations, with the potential for indirect impacts of gamebird releases on wider biodiversity. To understand the basis of these associations, we investigated variation in territory size, prey provisioning to chicks, and breeding success of common buzzards Buteo buteo, and associations with variation in the abundances of free- roaming gamebirds, primarily pheasants Phasianus colchicus, and of rabbits Oryctolagus cuniculus and field voles Microtus agrestis, as important prey for buzzards. The relative abundance of game-birds, but not those of rabbits or voles, was weakly but positively correlated with our index of buzzard territory size. Gamebirds were rarely brought to the nest. Rabbits and voles, and not gamebirds, were provisioned to chicks in proportion to their relative abundance. The number of buzzard chicks increased with provisioning rates of rabbits, in terms of both provisioning frequency and biomass, but not with provisioning rates for gamebirds or voles. Associations between the abundances of buzzards and gamebirds may not be a consequence of the greater availability of gamebirds as prey during the buzzard breeding season. Instead, the association may arise either from habitat or predator management leading to higher densities of alternative prey (in this instance, rabbits), or from greater availability of gamebirds as prey or carrion during the autumn and winter shooting season. The interactions between gamebird releases and associated practices of predator control and shooting itself require better understanding to more effectively intervene in any one aspect of this complex social-ecological system

Enteric helminths promote Salmonella co-infection by altering the intestinal metabolome

Intestinal helminth infections occur pre dominantly in regions where exposure to enteric bacterial pathogens is also common. Helminth infections inhibit host immunity against microbial pathogens, which has largely been attributed to the induction of regulatory or type 2 (Th2) immune responses. Here we demonstrate an additional three-way interaction in which helminth infection alters the metabolic environment of the host intestine to enhance bacterial pathogenicity. We show that an ongoing helminth infection increased colonization by Salmonella independently of T regulatory or Th2 cells. Instead, helminth infection altered the metabolic profile of the intestine, which directly enhanced bacterial expression of Salmonella pathogenicity island 1 (SPI-1) genes and increased intracellular invasion. These data reveal a novel mechanism by which a helminth-modified metabolome promotes susceptibility to bacterial co-infection