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Human–wildlife conflict challenges conservation worldwide, which requires innovative management solutions. We developed a prototype Agent-Based Model (ABM) to simulate interactions between humans and solitary bull Asian elephants in the Periyar–Agasthyamalai complex of the Western Ghats in Kerala, India. The main challenges were the complex behavior of elephants and insufficient movement data from the region. Using literature, expert insights, and field surveys, we created a prototype behavior model that incorporates crop habituation, thermoregulation, and aggression. We designed a four-step calibration method to adapt relocation data from radio-tagged elephants in Indonesia to model elephant movements in the model domain. The ABM's structure, including the assumptions, submodels, and data usage are detailed following the Overview, Design concepts, Details protocol. The ABM simulates various food availability scenarios to study elephant behavior and environmental impact on space use and conflict patterns. The results indicate that the wet months increase conflict and thermoregulation significantly influences elephant movements and crop raiding. Starvation and crop habituation intensify these patterns. This prototype ABM is an initial model that offers information on the development of a decision support system in wildlife management and will be further enhanced with layers of complexity and subtlety across various dimensions. Access the ABM at https://github.com/quest-lab-iisc/abm-elephant-project. • Developed a prototype ABM for Asian Elephants with movement and behavior models. • Crop raid dynamics, conflict validation and behavior insights from field survey data. • Developed a four-step process to tune movement model with radio-tagged elephant. data. • Crop habituation and foraging efficiency emerge as key drivers of crop raids. • Thermoregulation emerges as a surprise factor that reduces conflict in dry/hot months. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a long history predating modern humans, big-game hunting has been implicated in catalyzing human evolution through nutritional and provisioning benefits. An alternative view argues for this practice as a costly signaling strategy geared toward increasing male fitness through prestige and status benefits. We examine this possibility across contexts that include early human evolutionary phases, as well as historical and contemporary time periods. Our interpretive exploration across several disciplinary literatures covers hunting in the hominin evolutionary past, extant hunter-gatherers, and finally, political and cultural big-game hunting and sport as recounted in historical and mythological narratives. In some of these, we find strong support for costly signaling as a beneficial strategy. Further, in contexts where subsistence is not an articulated motivation for hunting, we argue that benefits accrued through male-to-male signaling and resulting status as measured through prestige and dominance could be a key component of social hierarchies and, ultimately, fitness outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the sport that purportedly enhanced martial conditioning of the 'dominant' race, pig-sticking assumed critical importance for the survival of the British in India. When numerous local insecurities and large-scale anxieties threatened the empire, hunting pursuits involving the wily Indian pig, it was said, made soldiers out of boys; the attendant spectacles of masculinity aimed to exert symbolic dominance over the restive Indian masses. The sport also served as an avenue for upward mobility for the subaltern soldier attempting to upstage aristocratic hunting performances in England and India. While masculinity and symbolic governance have been analysed repeatedly in critiques of hunting, sportsmen's contributions to natural history have seen limited analyses. Here, I show that the local intricacies of pig-sticking motivated a superlative understanding of the Indian wild boar, a tricky, unpredictable customer with a vile temper, and a ready propensity to attack its pursuers. Pig-sticking entailed a multi-faceted immersion with both land and people, incorporating hybrid knowledge-making, shaped within the contact zone of indigenous and colonial encounter. Further, while agreeing with post-colonial critiques on sport and imperialism, I propose looking beyond colonial exceptionalism to situate big-game hunting within the larger scholarship on costly signalling and hunting for prestige among human societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Article impact statement: Wallach et al.'s framing of compassionate conservation is flawed and impractical and could be dangerous for people, wildlife, and ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We compared woody plant species distributions across nested spatial scales (local scale to entire Western Himalaya) and explored landscape scale patterns in detail to obtain inferences about the elevational gradient in species richness. Distribution data were compiled for 1100 species in the Western Himalaya, and primary data, comprising 123 species and 47 000 individuals, were collected for a landscape. Correlates of diversity were examined for the five spatial scales, and for different biogeographic groups at the landscape scale. The results indicate multiple mechanisms both within and across scales. At the landscape scale, though the mechanisms explaining unimodal species richness patterns were hard to separate, the underlying correlates of biogeographic groups were more distinct; temperate species richness followed mid-domain model predictions, and showed a nonlinear relationship with temperature, whereas tropical species richness tracked temperature and area. Simulations demonstrated that models with varying assumptions, while resulting in monotonic, unimodal, or multimodal patterns at local scales, could all lead to unimodal patterns at regional scales when multiple local replicates are aggregated, with a peak in the major ecotone. The turnover or successive accumulation of marginal species in ecotones potentially explains the mid-elevational peak in this zone. Landscape scale primary data on distribution and abundance could therefore be critical to understanding key aspects of macroecological patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is time to acknowledge and overcome conservation's deep-seated systemic racism, which has historically marginalized Black, Indigenous and people of colour (BIPOC) communities and continues to do so. We describe how the mutually reinforcing 'twin spheres' of conservation science and conservation practice perpetuate this systemic racism. We trace how institutional structures in conservation science (e.g. degree programmes, support and advancement opportunities, course syllabuses) can systematically produce conservation graduates with partial and problematic conceptions of conservation's history and contemporary purposes. Many of these graduates go on to work in conservation practice, reproducing conservation's colonial history by contributing to programmes based on outmoded conservation models that disproportionately harm rural BIPOC communities and further restrict access and inclusion for BIPOC conservationists. We provide practical, actionable proposals for breaking vicious cycles of racism in the system of conservation we have with virtuous cycles of inclusion, equality, equity and participation in the system of conservation we want. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smallholder farmer and tribal communities are often characterised as marginalised and highly vulnerable to emerging zoonotic diseases due to their relatively poor access to healthcare, worse-off health outcomes, proximity to sources of disease risks, and their social and livelihood organisation. Yet, access to relevant and timely disease information that could strengthen their adaptive capacity remain challenging and poorly characterised in the empirical literature. This paper addresses this gap by exploring the role of disease information in shaping the adaptive capacity of smallholder farmer and tribal groups to Kyasanur Forest Disease (KFD), a tick-borne viral haemorrhagic fever. We carried out household surveys (n = 229) and in-depth interviews (n = 25) in two affected districts–Shimoga and Wayanad–in the Western Ghats region. Our findings suggest that, despite the generally limited awareness about KFD, access to disease information improved households' propensity to implement adaptation strategies relative to households that had no access to it. Of the variety of adaptation strategies implemented, vaccination, avoiding forest visits, wearing of protective clothing and footwear, application of dimethyl phthalate (DMP) oil and income diversification were identified by respondents as important adaptive measures during the outbreak seasons. Even so, we identified significant differences between individuals in exposure to disease information and its contribution to substantive adaptive action. Households reported several barriers to implement adaptation strategies including, lack of disease information, low efficacy of existing vaccine, distrust, religio-cultural sentiments, and livelihood concerns. We also found that informal information sharing presented a promising avenue from a health extension perspective albeit with trade-offs with potential distortion of the messages through misinformation and/or reporting bias. Altogether, our findings stress the importance of contextualising disease information and implementing interventions in a participatory way that sufficiently addresses the social determinants of health in order to bolster households' adaptive capacity to KFD and other neglected endemic zoonoses. Author summary: There is widespread consensus that smallholder farmer and tribal communities are highly vulnerable to zoonotic diseases (illness passed between animals and people). This is largely due to their relatively poor access to healthcare and closeness to sources of disease risks. Although access to relevant and timely disease information could enhance their adaptive capacity, remain difficult and poorly understood. Drawing on survey data (n = 229) and in-depth interviews (n = 25) in two affected districts (Shimoga and Wayanad); we explored the role of disease information in shaping adaptation to Kyasanur Forest Disease (KFD), a tick-borne viral haemorrhagic fever. We found that despite the limited awareness about KFD, access to disease information improved households' likelihood to implement adaptation strategies as compared to households that had no access to it. Households identified several barriers to implementation of adaptation strategies including, lack of disease information, low efficacy of existing vaccine, distrust, religio-cultural sentiments, and livelihood concerns. Our findings highlight the relevance of contextualising disease information and implementing interventions in a participatory manner in order to strengthen households' adaptive capacity to KFD and other neglected endemic zoonoses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zoonotic diseases affect resource-poor tropical communities disproportionately, and are linked to human use and modification of ecosystems. Disentangling the socio-ecological mechanisms by which ecosystem change precipitates impacts of pathogens is critical for predicting disease risk and designing effective intervention strategies. Despite the global "One Health" initiative, predictive models for tropical zoonotic diseases often focus on narrow ranges of risk factors and are rarely scaled to intervention programs and ecosystem use. This study uses a participatory, co-production approach to address this disconnect between science, policy and implementation, by developing more informative disease models for a fatal tick-borne viral haemorrhagic disease, Kyasanur Forest Disease (KFD), that is spreading across degraded forest ecosystems in India. We integrated knowledge across disciplines to identify key risk factors and needs with actors and beneficiaries across the relevant policy sectors, to understand disease patterns and develop decision support tools. Human case locations (2014–2018) and spatial machine learning quantified the relative role of risk factors, including forest cover and loss, host densities and public health access, in driving landscape-scale disease patterns in a long-affected district (Shivamogga, Karnataka State). Models combining forest metrics, livestock densities and elevation accurately predicted spatial patterns in human KFD cases (2014–2018). Consistent with suggestions that KFD is an "ecotonal" disease, landscapes at higher risk for human KFD contained diverse forest-plantation mosaics with high coverage of moist evergreen forest and plantation, high indigenous cattle density, and low coverage of dry deciduous forest. Models predicted new hotspots of outbreaks in 2019, indicating their value for spatial targeting of intervention. Co-production was vital for: gathering outbreak data that reflected locations of exposure in the landscape; better understanding contextual socio-ecological risk factors; and tailoring the spatial grain and outputs to the scale of forest use, and public health interventions. We argue this inter-disciplinary approach to risk prediction is applicable across zoonotic diseases in tropical settings. Author summary: Worldwide, impacts of zoonotic diseases, that cycle between animals and people, are concentrated in tropical communities and often linked to the way people use and change ecosystems. Interventions for zoonotic diseases could be targeted better using risk maps based on computer models that integrate social and ecological risk factors across degraded ecosystems. However, such predictive models often perform poorly at local scales, incorporate narrow ranges of risk factors, and are disconnected from policy, managers and interventions. Co-production brings together stakeholders and knowledge, across the human health, animal health and environmental sectors, aligning with the OneHealth Initiative, to develop more informative predictive tools for zoonotic diseases. Through co-production, we develop predictive models for a fatal tick-borne disease, Kyasanur Forest Diseases (KFD) that is spreading across the degraded Western Ghats forest in India. These models incorporating contextual risk factors identified by stakeholders, accurately predicted patterns in human cases of KFD (2014–2018) in Shivamogga district, Karnataka State, and identified new hotspots of infection during the subsequent 2019 outbreak. Landscapes at highest risk encompassed diverse forest-plantation mosaics with high coverage of moist evergreen forest and plantation, high indigenous cattle density, and low coverage of dry deciduous forest. Co-production resulted in outbreak data that reflected where exposure occurred in the landscape and outputs of value for targeting of interventions, matched to the scale of forest use and public health interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Islands offer unique model systems for studying fisheries development in relation to the growing global seafood trade. This study examines how export-driven fisheries in India's oceanic islands (Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep Islands) differ significantly as a result of their varied history, culture, available infrastructure and market access. Despite being geographically closer to export centres on the Indian mainland, processing and transport infrastructure in the Lakshadweep Islands are limited. This only allows for the trade of non-perishable commodities like dried tuna that are caught using traditional pole-and-line fishing techniques, restricting reef exploitation to local preference-based consumption and opportunistic export. The Andaman Islands, on the other hand, with multiple daily flight connections and large private and government processing facilities, are better connected to export markets. The relatively recent and multicultural fisheries of these islands supply marine commodity chains for reef fishery goods such as dried shark fins, frozen snapper fillets and chilled groupers. The Nicobar Islands are furthest away from mainland export centres and are mostly populated by indigenous communities – fishing here is mostly for subsistence and local sale. Revised estimates of travel times to export market centres are counterintuitive in terms of geographical distances and are significantly different from travel times to local markets. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]