In the past decade, ecologists have witnessed vast improvements in our ability to collect animal movement data through animal-borne technology, such as through GPS or ARGOS systems. However, more ...data does not necessarily yield greater knowledge in understanding animal ecology and conservation. In this paper, we provide a review of the major benefits, problems and potential misuses of GPS/Argos technology to animal ecology and conservation. Benefits are obvious, and include the ability to collect fine-scale spatio-temporal location data on many previously impossible to study animals, such as ocean-going fish, migratory songbirds and long-distance migratory mammals. These benefits come with significant problems, however, imposed by frequent collar failures and high cost, which often results in weaker study design, reduced sample sizes and poorer statistical inference. In addition, we see the divorcing of biologists from a field-based understanding of animal ecology to be a growing problem. Despite these difficulties, GPS devices have provided significant benefits, particularly in the conservation and ecology of wide-ranging species. We conclude by offering suggestions for ecologists on which kinds of ecological questions would currently benefit the most from GPS/Argos technology, and where the technology has been potentially misused. Significant conceptual challenges remain, however, including the links between movement and behaviour, and movement and population dynamics.
Occupancy–abundance (OA) relationships are a foundational ecological phenomenon and field of study, and occupancy models are increasingly used to track population trends and understand ecological ...interactions. However, these two fields of ecological inquiry remain largely isolated, despite growing appreciation of the importance of integration. For example, using occupancy models to infer trends in abundance is predicated on positive OA relationships. Many occupancy studies collect data that violate geographical closure assumptions due to the choice of sampling scales and application to mobile organisms, which may change how occupancy and abundance are related. Little research, however, has explored how different occupancy sampling designs affect OA relationships. We develop a conceptual framework for understanding how sampling scales affect the definition of occupancy for mobile organisms, which drives OA relationships. We explore how spatial and temporal sampling scales, and the choice of sampling unit (areal vs. point sampling), affect OA relationships. We develop predictions using simulations, and test them using empirical occupancy data from remote cameras on 11 medium-large mammals. Surprisingly, our simulations demonstrate that when using point sampling, OA relationships are unaffected by spatial sampling grain (i.e., cell size). In contrast, when using areal sampling (e.g., species atlas data), OA relationships are affected by spatial grain. Furthermore, OA relationships are also affected by temporal sampling scales, where the curvature of the OA relationship increases with temporal sampling duration. Our empirical results support these predictions, showing that at any given abundance, the spatial grain of point sampling does not affect occupancy estimates, but longer surveys do increase occupancy estimates. For rare species (low occupancy), estimates of occupancy will quickly increase with longer surveys, even while abundance remains constant. Our results also clearly demonstrate that occupancy for mobile species without geographical closure is not true occupancy. The independence of occupancy estimates from spatial sampling grain depends on the sampling unit. Point-sampling surveys can, however, provide unbiased estimates of occupancy for multiple species simultaneously, irrespective of home-range size. The use of occupancy for trend monitoring needs to explicitly articulate how the chosen sampling scales define occupancy and affect the occupancy–abundance relationship.
Trade-offs between predation risk and forage fundamentally drive resource selection by animals. Among migratory ungulates, trade-offs can occur at large spatial scales through migration, which allows ...an "escape" from predation, but trade-offs can also occur at finer spatial scales. Previous authors suggest that ungulates will avoid predation risk at the largest scale, although few studies have examined multi-scale trade-offs to test for the relative benefits of risk avoidance across scales. Building on previously developed spatial models of forage and wolf predation risk, we tested for trade-offs at the broad landscape scale and at a finer, within-home-range scale for migratory and non-migratory resident elk (Cervus elaphus) during summer in the Canadian Rockies in Banff National Park (BNP) and adjacent Alberta, Canada. Migration reduced exposure to wolf predation risk by 70% relative to residents at the landscape scale; at the fine scale, migrants used areas that were, on average, 6% higher in forage digestibility. In contrast, by forgoing migration, resident elk were exposed to higher predation risk, but they reduced predation risk at fine scales to only 15% higher than migrants by using areas close to human activity, which wolves avoided. Thus, residents paid for trying to avoid predation risk with lower forage quality. Residents may have been able to compensate, however, by using areas of abundant forage close to human activity where they may have been able to forage more selectively while avoiding predation risk. Human activity effectively decoupled the positive correlation between high forage quality and wolf predation, providing an effective alternate strategy for residents, similar to recent findings in other systems. Although ungulates appear capable of balancing risk and forage at different spatial scales, risk avoidance at large landscape scales may be more effective in the absence of human-caused refugia from predation.
Brill's Companion to Bodyguards in the Ancient Mediterranean is the first scholarly volume dedicated to examining the political, religious, social and cultural role bodyguards played in civilizations ...across the ancient Mediterranean world.
The forage maturation hypothesis (FMH) proposes that ungulate migration is driven by selection for high forage quality. Because quality declines with plant maturation, but intake declines at low ...biomass, ungulates are predicted to select for intermediate forage biomass to maximize energy intake by following phenological gradients during the growing season. We tested the FMH in the Canadian Rocky Mountains by comparing forage availability and selection by both migrant and nonmigratory resident elk (Cervus elaphus) during three growing seasons from 2002—2004. First, we confirmed that the expected trade-off between forage quality and quantity occurred across vegetation communities. Next, we modeled forage biomass and phenology during the growing season by combining ground and remote-sensing approaches. The growing season started 2.2 days earlier every 1 km east of the continental divide, was delayed by 50 days for every 1000-m increase in elevation, and occurred 8 days earlier on south aspects. Migrant and resident selection for forage biomass was then compared across three spatial scales (across the study area, within summer home ranges, and along movement paths) using VHF and GPS telemetry locations from 119 female elk. Migrant home ranges occurred closer to the continental divide in areas of higher topographical diversity, resulting in migrants consistently selecting for intermediate biomass at the two largest scales, but not at the finest scale along movement paths. In contrast, residents selected maximum forage biomass across all spatial scales. To evaluate the consequences of selection, we compared exposure at telemetry locations of migrant and resident elk to expected forage biomass and digestibility. The expected digestibility for migrant elk in summer was 6.5% higher than for residents, which was corroborated with higher fecal nitrogen levels for migrants. The observed differences in digestibility should increase migrant elk body mass, pregnancy rates, and adult and calf survival rates. Whether bottom-up effects of improved forage quality are realized will ultimately depend on trade-offs between forage and predation. Nevertheless, this study provides comprehensive evidence that montane ungulate migration leads to greater access to higher-quality forage relative to nonmigratory congeners, as predicted by the forage maturation hypothesis, resulting primarily from large-scale selection patterns.
Awareness of the impact of the global energy industry and associated landuse change on biodiversity conservation has been steadily growing amongst conservation biologists. Across Canada, 28 of 57 ...populations of boreal woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) are declining and 20 of 25 southern mountain populations are in decline with several recent high-profile extirpations. Declines stem from widespread landuse change from energy development and forestry that will take decades to recover, if ever. In Western Canada's Boreal forest, a globally significant oil and gas industry has emerged that is the biggest source of foreign oil to US markets. All woodland caribou populations overlapping oil and gas development in oil-rich Alberta are in rapid decline, shrinking by 50% every 8years. After a decade of delay, the Federal government released recovery plans under the Canadian Species-at-Risk Act (SARA) in 2012 and 2014 for these two caribou ecotypes, and will audit provincial compliance in 2017. Yet recovery actions have been inadequate, and have relied on wolf control as a short-term solution. Given the stark reality, conservation triage might be expected. Instead, the conservation objective at Federal and Provincial levels remains legally committed to recovery of all populations despite the paradox of continued declines. I suggest the reason for ineffective conservation planning is the staggering cost of effective habitat protection that far exceeds $150 billion (CDN) in Alberta alone. Declines of woodland caribou also allegedly violate Canadian Aboriginal treaty rights that have been challenged in court. This complex conservation case-study urgently illustrates the need for strategic conservation triage at provincial and national levels. And more generally, caribou conservation demonstrates the challenge of using national endangered species legislation to retroactively counteract the global energy industry without strategic conservation planning coordinated with energy and cultural policies.
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•Western Canada is the #1 supplier of foreign oil to US markets, and globally significant.•Oil and gas development is among the leading causes of declines of over half of Canada's woodland caribou.•Woodland caribou are a key umbrella species for Boreal forest biodiversity, health, and carbon.•Canada's Species-at-Risk Act (SARA) aims to recover all of Canada's woodland caribou populations, but ignores the huge economic costs of habitat protection and feasibility of achieving this goal.•Conservation triage at national scales is urgently needed to strategically allocate conservation dollars while maintaining energy development.
Animal movement is fundamental for ecosystem functioning and species survival, yet the effects of the anthropogenic footprint on animal movements have not been estimated across species. Using a ...unique GPS-tracking database of 803 individuals across 57 species, we found that movements of mammals in areas with a comparatively high human footprint were on average one-half to one-third the extent of their movements in areas with a low human footprint. We attribute this reduction to behavioral changes of individual animals and to the exclusion of species with long-range movements from areas with higher human impact. Global loss of vagility alters a key ecological trait of animals that affects not only population persistence but also ecosystem processes such as predator-prey interactions, nutrient cycling, and disease transmission.
Large carnivores face serious threats and are experiencing massive declines in their populations and geographic ranges around the world. We highlight how these threats have affected the conservation ...status and ecological functioning of the 31 largest mammalian carnivores on Earth. Consistent with theory, empirical studies increasingly show that large carnivores have substantial effects on the structure and function of diverse ecosystems. Significant cascading trophic interactions, mediated by their prey or sympatric mesopredators, arise when some of these carnivores are extirpated from or repatriated to ecosystems. Unexpected effects of trophic cascades on various taxa and processes include changes to bird, mammal, invertebrate, and herpetofauna abundance or richness; subsidies to scavengers; altered disease dynamics; carbon sequestration; modified stream morphology; and crop damage. Promoting tolerance and coexistence with large carnivores is a crucial societal challenge that will ultimately determine the fate of Earth's largest carnivores and all that depends upon them, including humans.
Ecological Consequences of Sea-Ice Decline Post, Eric; Bhatt, Uma S.; Bitz, Cecilia M. ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
08/2013, Letnik:
341, Številka:
6145
Journal Article
Recenzirano
After a decade with nine of the lowest arctic sea-ice minima on record, including the historically low minimum in 2012, we synthesize recent developments in the study of ecological responses to ...sea-ice decline. Sea-ice loss emerges as an important driver of marine and terrestrial ecological dynamics, influencing productivity, species interactions, population mixing, gene flow, and pathogen and disease transmission. Major challenges in the near future include assigning clearer attribution to sea ice as a primary driver of such dynamics, especially in terrestrial systems, and addressing pressures arising from human use of arctic coastal and near-shore areas as sea ice diminishes.
Migrating bison engineer the green wave Geremia, Chris; Merkle, Jerod A.; Eacker, Daniel R. ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
12/2019, Letnik:
116, Številka:
51
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Newly emerging plants provide the best forage for herbivores. To exploit this fleeting resource, migrating herbivores align their movements to surf the wave of spring green-up. With new technology to ...track migrating animals, the Green Wave Hypothesis has steadily gained empirical support across a diversity of migratory taxa. This hypothesis assumes the green wave is controlled by variation in climate, weather, and topography, and its progression dictates the timing, pace, and extent of migrations. However, aggregate grazers that are also capable of engineering grassland ecosystems make some of the world’s most impressive migrations, and it is unclear how the green wave determines their movements. Here we show that Yellowstone’s bison (Bison bison) do not choreograph their migratory movements to the wave of spring green-up. Instead, bison modify the green wave as they migrate and graze. While most bison surfed during early spring, they eventually slowed and let the green wave pass them by. However, small-scale experiments indicated that feedback from grazing sustained forage quality. Most importantly, a 6-fold decadal shift in bison density revealed that intense grazing caused grasslands to green up faster, more intensely, and for a longer duration. Our finding broadens our understanding of the ways in which animal movements underpin the foraging benefit of migration. The widely accepted Green Wave Hypothesis needs to be revised to include large aggregate grazers that not only move to find forage, but also engineer plant phenology through grazing, thereby shaping their own migratory movements.
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