Conservationists often complain that their study species are ignored by donors. However, marketing theory could help understand and increase the profile and fundraising potential of these neglected ...species. We used linear regression with multimodel inference to analyse data on online behaviour from the websites of the World Wildlife Fund-US (WWF-US) and the Zoological Society of London's EDGE of Existence programme (EDGE), in order to understand how species traits and marketing campaign characteristics influenced flagship-based fundraising efforts. Our analysis accounted for species traits through variables such as appeal and familiarity, and marketing campaign characteristics through measuring the order in which the species were presented and the amount of information provided. We found that species traits were key for the WWF-US website, with appealing and threatened non-mammal species the most popular with donors. This was probably because WWF-US used well-known flagship species and so marketing had little impact. The EDGE website used a wider variety of species and in this case both species traits and the marketing campaign characteristics were important, so that appealing species and well-promoted species did best. We then predicted outcomes for a hypothetical EDGE fundraising campaign with varying degrees of marketing effort. We showed that additional marketing can have a large impact on donor behaviour, potentially increasing the interest of potential donors towards unappealing species by up to 26 times. This increase would more than equal the amount raised by campaigns using appealing species without additional promotion. Our results show marketing can have a large impact on donor behaviour and suggest there is scope for successful marketing campaigns based on a much wider range of species.
Conservation priority setting based on phylogenetic diversity has frequently been proposed but rarely implemented. Here, we define a simple index that measures the contribution made by different ...species to phylogenetic diversity and show how the index might contribute towards species-based conservation priorities. We describe procedures to control for missing species, incomplete phylogenetic resolution and uncertainty in node ages that make it possible to apply the method in poorly known clades. We also show that the index is independent of clade size in phylogenies of more than 100 species, indicating that scores from unrelated taxonomic groups are likely to be comparable. Similar scores are returned under two different species concepts, suggesting that the index is robust to taxonomic changes. The approach is applied to a near-complete species-level phylogeny of the Mammalia to generate a global priority list incorporating both phylogenetic diversity and extinction risk. The 100 highest-ranking species represent a high proportion of total mammalian diversity and include many species not usually recognised as conservation priorities. Many species that are both evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered (EDGE species) do not benefit from existing conservation projects or protected areas. The results suggest that global conservation priorities may have to be reassessed in order to prevent a disproportionately large amount of mammalian evolutionary history becoming extinct in the near future.
Human-driven global change is causing ongoing declines in biodiversity worldwide. In order to address these declines, decision-makers need accurate assessments of the status of and pressures on ...biodiversity. However, these are heavily constrained by incomplete and uneven spatial, temporal and taxonomic coverage. For instance, data from regions such as Europe and North America are currently used overwhelmingly for large-scale biodiversity assessments due to lesser availability of suitable data from other, more biodiversity-rich, regions. These data-poor regions are often those experiencing the strongest threats to biodiversity, however. There is therefore an urgent need to fill the existing gaps in global biodiversity monitoring. Here, we review current knowledge on best practice in capacity building for biodiversity monitoring and provide an overview of existing means to improve biodiversity data collection considering the different types of biodiversity monitoring data. Our review comprises insights from work in Africa, South America, Polar Regions and Europe; in government-funded, volunteer and citizen-based monitoring in terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems. The key steps to effectively building capacity in biodiversity monitoring are: identifying monitoring questions and aims; identifying the key components, functions, and processes to monitor; identifying the most suitable monitoring methods for these elements, carrying out monitoring activities; managing the resultant data; and interpreting monitoring data. Additionally, biodiversity monitoring should use multiple approaches including extensive and intensive monitoring through volunteers and professional scientists but also harnessing new technologies. Finally, we call on the scientific community to share biodiversity monitoring data, knowledge and tools to ensure the accessibility, interoperability, and reporting of biodiversity data at a global scale.
Under the impact of human activity, global extinction rates have risen a thousand times higher than shown in the fossil record. The resources available for conservation are insufficient to prevent ...the loss of much of the world's threatened biodiversity during this crisis. Conservation planners have been forced to prioritize their protective activities, in the context of great uncertainty. This has become known as ‘the agony of choice’. A range of methods have been proposed for prioritizing species for conservation attention; one of the most strongly supported is prioritizing those species that maximize phylogenetic distinctiveness (PD). We evaluate how a composite measure of extinction risk and phylogenetic isolation (EDGE) has been used to prioritize species according to their degree of unique evolutionary history (evolutionary distinctiveness, ED) weighted by conservation urgency (global endangerment, GE). We review PD-based approaches and provide an updated list of EDGE mammals using the 2010 IUCN Red List. We evaluate how robust this method is to changes in phylogenetic uncertainty, knowledge of taxonomy and extinction risk, and examine how mammalian species that rank highly in EDGE score are representative of the collective from which they are drawn.
Despite being heavily exploited, pangolins (Pholidota: Manidae) have been subject to
limited research, resulting in a lack of reliable population estimates and standardised
survey methods for the ...eight extant species. Camera trapping represents a unique opportunity
for broad-scale collaborative species monitoring due to its largely nondiscriminatory
nature, which creates considerable volumes of data on a relatively wide
range of species. This has the potential to shed light on the ecology of rare, cryptic and
understudied taxa, with implications for conservation decision-making. We undertook a
global analysis of available pangolin data from camera trapping studies across their range
in Africa and Asia. Our aims were (1) to assess the utility of existing camera trapping efforts
as a method for monitoring pangolin populations, and (2) to gain insights into the distribution
and ecology of pangolins. We analysed data collated from 103 camera trap surveys
undertaken across 22 countries that fell within the range of seven of the eight
pangolin species, which yielded more than half a million trap nights and 888 pangolin
encounters. We ran occupancy analyses on three species (Sunda pangolin Manis javanica,
white-bellied pangolin Phataginus tricuspis and giant pangolin Smutsia gigantea). Detection
probabilities varied with forest cover and levels of human influence for P. tricuspis, but were low (<0.05) for all species. Occupancy was associated with distance from rivers for M.
javanica and S. gigantea, elevation for P. tricuspis and S. gigantea, forest cover for P. tricuspis
and protected area status for M. javanica and P. tricuspis.We conclude that camera traps are
suitable for the detection of pangolins and large-scale assessment of their distributions.
However, the trapping effort required to monitor populations at any given study site using
existing methods appears prohibitively high. This may change in the future should
anticipated technological and methodological advances in camera trapping facilitate
greater sampling efforts and/or higher probabilities of detection. In particular, targeted
camera placement for pangolins is likely to make pangolin monitoring more feasible with
moderate sampling efforts.
Local ecological knowledge (LEK) can provide cost-effective baseline ecological data across large geographical areas, and is increasingly seen as an important source of information for rare and ...cryptic species. However, to date, its use as a practical tool for prioritising conservation action is limited. Pangolins are the world’s most heavily trafficked wild mammals and all species are in decline. The Philippine pangolin (Manis culionensis) is Critically Endangered but conservation efforts are hindered by a lack of knowledge on where populations still exist and where in situ action should be prioritised. We conducted the first range-wide systematic survey for the species using household interviews (n = 1296) to provide new data on pangolin distribution, status and threats, and to assess the use of LEK for highlighting priority areas for conservation. LEK about pangolins was high (87% of respondents recognised pangolins and provided further information), with evidence of pangolin occurrence in 17 of the 18 municipalities surveyed. The majority (70%) of respondents had seen a pangolin, but most (72%) perceived pangolins to be ‘rare’ or ‘very rare’, and local use of pangolins was reported across the species’ range. Spatial differences in sighting frequencies, perceived abundance and reported population trends were observed, providing an important baseline to identify priority sites for targeted research and community-based pangolin conservation.
It is essential to understand whether conservation interventions are having the desired effect, particularly in light of increasing pressures on biodiversity and because of requirements by donors ...that project success be demonstrated. Whilst most evaluations look at effectiveness at a project or organizational level, local efforts need to be connected to an understanding of the effectiveness of conservation directed at a species as a whole, particularly as most metrics of conservation success are at the level of species. We present a framework for measuring the effectiveness of conservation attention at a species level over time, based on scoring eight factors essential for species conservation (engaging stakeholders, management programme, education and awareness, funding and resource mobilization, addressing threats, communication, capacity building and status knowledge), across input, output and outcome stages, in relation to the proportion of the species’ range where each factor attains its highest score. The framework was tested using expert elicitation for 35 mammal and amphibian species on the Zoological Society of London's list of Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered species. Broad patterns in the index produced by the framework could suggest potential mechanisms underlying change in species status. Assigning an uncertainty score to information demonstrates not only where gaps in knowledge exist, but discrepancies in knowledge between experts. This framework could be a useful tool to link local and global scales of impact on species conservation, and could provide a simple and visually appealing way of tracking conservation over time.
The Chinese pangolin (
) has long suffered from intense exploitation driven by consumer demand for medicinal use and food. Effective conservation management is hampered by insufficient data on ...pangolin status and distribution. We integrated ecological niche modelling with long-term ecological records at the local scale (e.g. from local historical documents, grey and published literature and interviews) to estimate the magnitude of potential distribution change of the Chinese pangolin in eastern China (Fujian, Jiangxi and Zhejiang provinces) over time. Our results suggest that the range of the species decreased by 52.20% between the 1970s and early 2000s and that the population is now mainly confined to the Wuyi Mountains. This reduction in potential distribution range is attributable to anthropogenic pressures. According to our conservation prioritization analysis, the priority conservation area for the Chinese pangolin in eastern China is 51 268.4 km
, 5.62% of which is covered by nature reserves. There are 18 nature reserves and 46 prefectures which are priority areas for conservation in China. The priority-level nature reserves and prefectures in eastern China are mainly located in the centre of the Wuyi Mountains, and areas declared important tend to be around the Wuyi Mountains. We propose several actions to improve the conservation status of this species: establish or enlarge nature reserves, ensure local governments at the prefecture level prioritize conservation management and encourage local communities to participate in pangolin conservation.
Historical data for conservation Yang, Li; Chen, Minhao; Challender, Daniel W. S. ...
Proceedings of the Royal Society. B, Biological sciences,
08/2018, Letnik:
285, Številka:
1885
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) has long suffered from intense exploitation driven by consumer demand for medicinal use and food. Effective conservation management is hampered by ...insufficient data on pangolin status and distribution. We integrated ecological niche modelling with long-term ecological records at the local scale (e.g. from local historical documents, grey and published literature and interviews) to estimate the magnitude of potential distribution change of the Chinese pangolin in eastern China (Fujian, Jiangxi and Zhejiang provinces) over time. Our results suggest that the range of the species decreased by 52.20% between the 1970s and early 2000s and that the population is now mainly confined to the Wuyi Mountains. This reduction in potential distribution range is attributable to anthropogenic pressures. According to our conservation prioritization analysis, the priority conservation area for the Chinese pangolin in eastern China is 51 268.4 km², 5.62% of which is covered by nature reserves. There are 18 nature reserves and 46 prefectures which are priority areas for conservation in China. The priority-level nature reserves and prefectures in eastern China are mainly located in the centre of the Wuyi Mountains, and areas declared important tend to be around the Wuyi Mountains. We propose several actions to improve the conservation status of this species: establish or enlarge nature reserves, ensure local governments at the prefecture level prioritize conservation management and encourage local communities to participate in pangolin conservation.
Attenborough's long-beaked echidna Zaglossus attenboroughi is known from a single specimen collected in the Cyclops Mountains of northern Papua in 1961, and has previously been considered to be ...extremely rare if not already extinct. New fieldwork to investigate the continued survival of Z. attenboroughi was conducted on the north and south slopes of the Cyclops Mountains in May 2007 using community interviews, sign surveys and visual encounter surveys. Many villagers recognized photographs of long-beaked echidnas, were able to describe key biological characteristics of echidnas, and reported several recent sightings below 300 m elevation, referring to the animal as payangko. Although no echidnas were observed during fieldwork, diagnostic echidna feeding signs (imprints of nose pokes) were detected from < 300 m to 1,250 m and possibly up to 1,700 m elevation. These extensive reports and observations confirm that long-beaked echidnas are still present in the Cyclops Mountains, and descriptions provided by local informants strongly suggest that the reports refer to Z. attenboroughi. However, the species remains threatened by human impacts, primarily subsistence hunting and habitat loss. Efforts are now being made to learn more about the relationship of Attenborough's long-beaked echidna to all other Zaglossus species, and a project is being initiated with local communities to monitor sightings and increase awareness of this rare and evolutionarily distinct mammal.
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