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Conflict with humans is one of the primary reasons why large carnivore populations are declining worldwide. Rates of human‐carnivore conflict (HCC) are particularly high in East Africa, where human settlements tend to surround protected areas, maximizing potential for human‐carnivore interactions. Despite extensive HCC research in this region, HCC persists and carnivore populations continue to decline. Evident disconnects between HCC research and conservation action, management practices and policy formation have been cited as mechanisms associated with these trends. We conducted a literature review to determine the extent to which HCC research in East Africa is actionable within the context of management and policy formation. We evaluated 36 papers for co‐production, interdisciplinary collaboration, applied or theoretical publication and stakeholder engagement. Many were published by co‐authors in academia (63.8%) and collaborative efforts between academics and non‐governmental organizations (25.0%), with limited representation outside these sectors. Collaboration with disciplines outside the natural sciences, specifically the social and political sciences (both 2.8%), was also uncommon although humans were the primary topic of study in 28% of papers. Moreover, while many papers were published in applied journals (86%), few explicitly stated policy and management objectives. Stakeholder engagement was mostly in the form of surveys and questionnaires rather than direct involvement in the research process. Our review indicates that HCC research currently lacks strong evidence of actionability and we provide recommendations for improving the practical salience of conservation research.

Numerous recent papers have demonstrated a central role for genetic factors in the extinction process or have documented the importance of gene flow in reversing population declines. This prompted one recent publication to declare that a revolution in conservation genetics has occurred. Contemporaneously with this revolution are a series of papers demonstrating long-term population persistence for several species despite having little or no detectable genetic variation. In a couple of notable cases, populations have been shown to have survived for centuries at small population size and with depleted levels of genetic variation. These contradictory results demand an explanation. In this review, I will show that these results do not necessarily fly in the face of theory as sometimes stated. The reconciliation of these two sets of observations relies on the incorporation of two major concepts. (1) Genetic factors do not act in a vacuum and it is their interaction with the environment, the strength and type of selection imposed, and the life history of the organism that determine the relative importance of genetic factors to extinction risk. (2) The relationship between molecular estimates of genetic variation and evolutionary potential, the relevance of genetic bottlenecks to adaptive genetic variation, and the nature of the stochastic process of extinction must be better integrated into expectations of population viability. Reports of populations persisting for hundreds of generations with very little detectable genetic variation provide us not only with valuable information but also with hope. However, recent studies suggest that we should not be sanguine about the importance of genetic diversity in the conservation of biodiversity.

Read the Feature Paper: Protected areas and insect conservation: questioning the effectiveness of Natura 2000 network for saproxylic beetles in Italy Commentaries on this Feature Paper: Institutional vertebratism hampers insect conservation generally; not just saproxylic beetle conservation; Knowledge gaps in protected area effectiveness

Rabbits are considered by biologists to be among the worst invasive species. Their impact on invaded ecosystems, epitomized in Australia and on islands worldwide (e.g. North, Bullock & Dulloo, 1994; Williams et al., 1995; Burbidge & Moris, 2001; Garzon-Machado et al., 2010), has earned them a well-deserved place in the infamous Invasive Species Specialist Group’s ‘100 of the Worst Invasive Alien Species’ list. Rabbits are capable of profoundly altering communities, ecosystems and landscapes by sapping biodiversity and biomass from the basic trophic levels of often fragile ecosystems. However, they also have more complex, and hitherto seldom documented effects on higher trophic levels (Zedler & Black, 1992; Priddel, Carlile & Wheeler, 2000; Oliver, LuqueLarena & Lambin, 2009; Denyer, Hartley & John, 2010). In the context of a few, but loud voices attempting to question the importance of alien invasive species (but see Lambertini et al., 2011; Lockwood, Hoopes & Marchetti, 2011), the paper by Brodier et al. (2011) is well timed. It reminds us that restoration ecology and the fight against biodiversity loss are possible, in particular on islands, as they generally have many endemic and threatened species. This paper also highlights two very important, yet previously overlooked points. The first is the importance of longterm follow-up after restoration programmes. The second is the need to consider the indirect (and consequently often hidden) effects that alien invasive species can have on seemingly unconnected species. By monitoring the populations, several petrel species and their avian predator (the brown skua, Catharacta skua) following the removal of rabbits, Brodier et al. (2011) show that rabbits compete for space with blue petrels, Halobaena caerulea. Following rabbit eradication, the competition for burrows was removed and the blue petrel population increased up to eightfold in a few generations. Brown skua also increased their survivorship in response to the increase in its main prey, the blue petrel. Interestingly, the population of another petrel, the Antarctic prion, Pachyptila desolata, was also impacted by the rabbits. Following the eradication, the Antarctic prion population declined fourfold (to exclusion) in areas of deep soil and remained stable where the soil was too shallow for blue petrel (and rabbits). The resulting system, illustrated in Fig. 1, shows that one unexpected, and up to now unreported, effect of rabbits was to erode the niche partitioning of nesting seabirds on the island. Removing the rabbits led to both a competitor release (of the blue petrel, freed from the competition with rabbits) and to an apparent competitor release (of the shared predator, the brown skua, boosted by increased blue petrel availability). The combination of direct and indirect interactions restricted Antarctic prions to shallow soil areas, less favoured by the blue petrel. This neat system shows how alien invasive species can have effects beyond the trophic level constituting their resources. The contrast between the spectacular recovery of the blue petrel, the increased survival but stable number of skua breeding pairs and the decrease of the Antarctic prion also illustrates well the difficulties to forecast outcomes that conservation program may face even in relatively simple trophic webs. This is especially so in the current context of global climate change, which already affects subantarctic islands (Chapuis, Frenot & Lebouvier, 2004; Dowding et al., 2009), and which could have played a role in the system, for example, in the delayed recovery of the skua. Monitoring population densities, survival and predator diet, every year, on this remote, far reaching island, for long after the rabbit eradication might have been seen as a risky bet. As it turned out, the bet paid off, in the best currency ever: knowledge and understanding. Deciphering the indirect effects a terrestrial herbivore can have on a community of seabirds with which they have few interactions if any, is crucial in our battle against alien invasive species (Bergstrom et al., 2009; Genovesi, 2011). It demonstrates very well that if we were to ‘judge alien species only on their effects’, we would miss all but the tip of the iceberg and would allow important but unapparent, indirect effects of alien invasive species on native ecosystems. One regret from this study is that the monitoring effort conducted after rabbit eradication was not also implemented Animal Conservation. Print ISSN 1367-9430

The biodiversity crisis that the world is facing (Pimm et al., 1995) urges immediate conservation actions to counteract it, and the extreme paucity of the resources available to undertake these actions means that conservation managers are in urgent need of optimal choices. Prioritization among possible actions is therefore of paramount importance to choose strategies that give the best return on conservation investment and thus maximize benefit (Murdoch et al., 2007; Wilson et al., 2007). Yet conservation biology is by definition (Soule, 1985) a crisis discipline, with conservation scientists often asked to make tactical decisions based on scarce information. This is one of the reasons why conservation biology is pervaded by uncertainty (Regan, Colyvan & Burgman, 2002; Rondinini et al., 2006), which in turn paves the road to subjectivity (much more so than in other related disciplines, e.g. ecology and genetics) because incomplete data complicate the task of comparing objectively alternative, competing hypotheses and reject wrong hypotheses. In the last 25 years, quantitative techniques that allow an objective prioritization of conservation strategies have been developed for systematic conservation planning (Margules & Pressey, 2000), the selection of sites to form networks of conservation areas to protect a species assemblage. The first, intuitive but groundbreaking paper on the subject introduced a technique to identify the minimum set of sites that represented a given assemblage of species in an area (Krikpatrick, 1983). Although not explicitly stated in that paper, the method did allow to rank alternative conservation strategies and select the most parsimonious. Thousands of papers on the subject have been published since. The theory has developed in complex algorithms that aid the identification of optimal strategies for large numbers of species and natural processes while taking into account cost, threats, temporal dynamics, zoning and uncertainty. The techniques are now routinely used to inform conservation action (Pressey, Johnson & Wilson, 1994; Ball & Possingham, 2000; Wilson et al., 2006). Optimization methods for conservation strategies other than site selection have been much less explored. Recent investigations include: how to minimize conflicts between humans and large carnivores in a spatially explicit manner (Rondinini & Boitani, 2007); the investigation of the tradeoffs between collecting data on threatened species and taking conservation action based on incomplete data (Chades et al., 2008); a multi-criteria evaluation framework for making conservation decisions that have consequences for multiple species, when each possible decision is more beneficial to some species than others (Drechsler, 2004). Gilioli et al. (2008) extend the scope of optimization to the choice among alternative conservation strategies for a metapopulation of a single species. They do it in a particularly intuitive and appealing manner, by measuring the distance to extinction of the metapopulation, modelled by an incidence function model (Hanski, 1994) under the alternative conservation strategies. As reviewed by Gilioli et al. (2008), a few indices of risk of extinction of metapopulations exist, but the Kullback–Leibler information measure (Kullback & Leibler, 1951) proposed by the authors has advantages over these indices: it can easily be computed irrespective of the number of patches modelled, and allows to evaluate the contribution of each patch to metapopulation persistence under the hypothesis of equilibrium. Gilioli et al. (2008) apply the measure on populations of amphibians, a group of particular conservation interest because one-third of their species are threatened with extinction (Stuart et al., 2004). While the species selected for the analysis (Bufo bufo and Rana temporaria) are still common outside the study area and therefore are not a conservation priority worldwide, the same technique could be readily applied to other, threatened amphibian species. Even though (as Gilioli et al., 2008 point out) it is always difficult to assess if a real population behaves as a metapopulation, their paper may be relevant for a large number of species beyond amphibians. Habitat destruction, fragmentation and degradation, mechanisms that may induce metapopulation dynamics, are for example the highest threat worldwide to mammal persistence (Schipper et al., 2008).

A small blackish muntjac has been discovered in the west Quang Nam province of Vietnam. DNA sequencing of six individuals showed that this is a distinct species. A description is given. The new find is the third new ungulate species to be discovered in Vietnam in five years. The paper predicts that more species remain to be found in the Annamite mountain range and includes DNA analysis from two more undescribed species. The DNA analysis indicates that there has been a radiation of several related muntjac species in the Annamite mountains, also that the new truongson muntjac shows high intraspecific genetic diversity indicative of a large effective population size. The paper discusses the significance of these finds from an evolutionary and conservation viewpoint. The authors urge conservation authorities in the IndoChinese countries to devote special measures to protect this site of dynamic evolution which retains a combination of relict endemics (e.g. Pseudoryx) as well as on-going speciation.

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In 1998 we wrote a paper describing DNA-based methods for estimating and monitoring both census ( N c ) and effective ( N e ) population sizes in natural populations (Schwartz, Tallmon & Luikart, 1998). The purposes of this paper were: (i) to review some relatively unexplored, but promising ways that multi-locus genetic data can be used to monitor and detect population declines, (ii) to encourage further development and validation of recent DNA-based N c and N e estimators. These approaches are urgently needed to help detect natural population declines in their early stages, so that management actions can be taken to avoid population endangerment and subsequent extinction. Crandall, Posada & Vasco (1999) have criticized the N e portion of our review claiming that we: (i) excluded phylogenetic estimators of N e that employ coalescent theory, (ii) did not distinguish between historical and current estimates of N e , (iii) did not define which N e we were estimating.

We would like to thank Cunningham and King (2013) for their comment on our paper about evaluating different indices of success (Howe & Milner-Gulland, 2012), particularly for their support for research that aims to develop methods for assessing the outcomes of conservation projects. However, there were a number of misunderstandings that have arisen from their interpretation of the original paper. The response from Cunningham and King (2013) does not appear to recognize the aim of this paper, which was to develop robust indices of success that are consistent between projects and evaluators for conservation programmes and projects in general. This paper does not attempt to evaluate the Darwin Initiative, relative to other conservation programmes, nor is it a criticism of the methods by which the Darwin Initiative measures its own success. For the purposes of this study, the Darwin Initiative is used solely as a database to evaluate the potential of three indices of conservation success. The Darwin Initiative was chosen because of its international reputation, the length and depth of its documentation and because confounding variables are reduced as projects are generally independent of each other, have similar budgets, the same duration and similar broad goals. By failing to recognize the purpose of the paper, Cunningham and King (2013) overlook the findings of this study that demonstrate it is possible to develop robust outcomebased indices of conservation success for comparison of projects within a funder’s portfolio and that output-based indices show similar results. This study does this in two stages: firstly by evaluating the internal consistency of the indices chosen and, secondly through a comparative assessment of the indices’ rankings of project success. On the first aim, we demonstrate that although there were systematic differences between scorers, the relative rankings between them were consistent. Cunningham and King (2013) suggest that we disapprove of the Darwin Initiative’s use of outputs as a measure of success; however, we do not state that this is the Darwin Initiative’s only measure of success nor do we find that it fails as an indicator of success in its own right. In fact, the output index (based on the standard measures) and the subjective ranked outcomes index (based on narratives within the final reports) were fairly consistent between assessors in their rankings of project success. However, the nuanced differences between the indices led us to conclude that different indices pick up different facets of project success, and therefore there is a need for multiple indices. When the data for this study were collected in 2006, with the full support of both the Darwin Initiative and the Edinburgh Centre for Tropical Forests (the organization then in charge of administrating and evaluating the Darwin Initiative), we were provided solely with the final reports and Darwin Standard Outputs as our raw data. The logical framework referred to was introduced in 2001; consequently, there were only 3 years of completed projects (2003–2006) that contained logical frameworks at the time of our study. Therefore it was not possible to use this information. If this study were to be repeated, this information would be an interesting complement to the indices used. As correctly stated by Cunningham and King (2013), a number of the standard measures are inputs rather than outputs; however, for the purposes of this study, only the outputs were used (as discussed in the Methods section) and therefore our use of outputs as a comparative index was valid. Regardless of whether the Darwin Initiative uses the standard measures as a method of evaluating their projects, a large number of conservation and development programmes and projects still use outputs as a method of evaluating their progress or success, and therefore it was a useful comparison to include an output-based index alongside two outcomebased indices for this comparative evaluation study. Finally, Cunningham and King (2013) discuss the Darwin Initiative’s current method of evaluating their projects by reviewing how successful the project has been at achieving its purpose statement (outcome). The method described is similar to, but perhaps less quantitative and repeatable than, the ranked outcomes method developed in this study. Their method allows for effectiveness to be evaluated on a project-by-project basis, whereas the different bs_bs_banner

Can wildlife learn harmful and maladaptive behaviours from each other? If so, insights into social learning among animal populations in response to anthropogenic stimuli are of wide interest and applicability. Donaldson et al. (2012) address social learning in human–wildlife interactions involving food provision. ‘Food-conditioned’ animals are subject to operant conditioning in which learning about anthropogenic food arises from repeated exposure to human stimuli, behavioural responses to those stimuli and reinforcement of behavioural responses because of food reward (Whittaker & Knight, 1998; Samuels & Bejder, 2004). In this paper, Donaldson et al. carefully negotiate the asocial/social learning dichotomy. The former arises from individual responses to the availability of anthropogenic food (e.g. in species that receive limited maternal care and are solitary as juveniles and adults). However, responses to provisioning may also arise through social learning in cases where individual animals are repeatedly exposed to the feeding behaviours of conspecifics that exploit anthropogenic foods. Operant conditioning describes a learning process that may be acquired individually or socially (Sargeant & Mann, 2009). Social learning involving responses to anthropogenic food may then be facilitative or supplementary. The specific focus of this paper is the long-term illegal provisioning of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) by members of the recreational fishing community in Cockburn Sound, south-western Australia. Social learning is available in this case, as individual bottlenose dolphins exist within complex social structures that involve extended juvenile dependence and enduring relationships between animals (Connor et al., 2000; Lusseau, 2003; Sargeant & Mann, 2009). Two variables emerge from the analysis as predictors of individual animals learning to accept food from recreationists engaged in fishing; the use of areas with high densities of recreational boats and association with previously conditioned dolphins. The harmfulness of such learned behaviours may include increased wildlife morbidity/ mortality, interventions to address ‘problem’ wildlife (which may involve culling) and, therefore, compromised sustainability resulting in loss of economic opportunities. These findings highlight the facilitative function of social learning in determining the development of individual animal behaviour responses to anthropogenic stimuli. They should motivate others to explore how these findings may extend beyond food provision (to other anthropogenic stimuli) and into a range of applied fields. One important application of social learning in human–wildlife interactions is sustainable tourism management. Knight (2009: p. 180) observes that we now live ‘. . . in an age when our visual appetite for wildlife has never been greater’. Wildlife viewing has rapidly moved into the mainstream of commercial tourism (Knight, 2009). More social species, including cetaceans, have become the focus of global interest, as tourists seek to observe critical behaviours such as maternal care, feeding and social interactions between conspecifics in the wild. The International Fund for Animal Welfare estimates that the whale watching industry now exceeds $2.1 billion per annum, catering for 13 million whale watchers, and generating 13 000 jobs (O’Connor et al., 2010). Neves (2010) describes this evolution as one form of periodic transformation in the global capitalist economy, and it is a transition that also raises the likelihood of social learning among individual animals that are subject to human stimuli through intensive and prolonged interactions with commercial tourism business and their clients. The provisioning of wild dolphins in a tourism context is unusual but does occur (Orams, 1995). More broadly, the provisioning of wild animals, common in the past (e.g. bear feeding in Yellowstone National Park; Davis, Wellwood & Ciarniello, 2002) continues in some tourism contexts, both directly (e.g. use of food to attract pelagic birds, sharks) and indirectly (e.g. attraction to camp sites because of food storage and disposal, Knight, 2009). This raises questions of diminished behaviours and reduced ‘wildness’ associated with efforts (deliberate or otherwise) to make wildlife viewable (Knight, 2009). However, the relevance of social learning in human–wildlife interactions should extend beyond provisioning, to other forms of tourism (e.g. swimming with dolphins) and specific behaviours (e.g. bow riding – the behaviour of dolphins in which they swim or ‘ride’ the crests of waves formed from the front of moving boats) that may increase the bs_bs_banner

Imagine a construction project whose objective is to build a bridge. The quality of the resulting bridge might be debated and disputed, but that it has been delivered, and that the project is responsible for its delivery, is usually relatively simple to verify. It is much more difficult to evaluate success where a project aims to deliver something whose existence is costly or technically challenging to monitor, and something whose status may be affected (positively or negatively) by a range of influences that have nothing to do with the project. Conservation interventions may seek to influence the conservation status of a range of species, improve the management of an area of habitat, or change the attitudes and behaviour of a population of people. All of these things are challenging to measure in themselves. Importantly, they can also be affected by a myriad of factors external to a project (global commodity prices, national politics or law enforcement, and shifting social norms) making it challenging to tease apart the influence of the project on the sought after outcome. Conservation projects have widely been criticized in the past for poor evaluation (Saterson et al., 2004; Brooks et al., 2006). In their paper, Howe & Milner-Gulland (2012) look at the question of what indices are appropriate for evaluating success in conservation. Howe & Milner-Gulland (2012) follow others by distinguishing outputs (the amount of something delivered by a project, e.g. number of workshops held, papers published or posters distributed) and outcomes (the long-term consequences of the project, e.g. change in population size of a target species). Outcomes are what the project ultimately aims to deliver, but they can be very costly to measure. A recent study of the costs of monitoring presence or absence of a variety of species of conservation concern in the dry forests of Madagascar illustrates the challenge of monitoring outcomes directly. Sommerville, Milner-Gulland & Jones (2011) found that monitoring that could robustly detect change over time would be unrealistically costly for the vast majority of species as would cost more than the budget for the entire intervention. The UK government launched its Darwin Initiative at the Rio summit in 1992. Since then, it has invested £88 million in biodiversity conservation projects in 154 countries (DEFRA, 2012). This fantastic programme provided Howe & Milner-Gulland (2012) with an unrivalled opportunity to investigate how much agreement there was in rankings of project success as evaluated using different indices (one based on reported outputs, and two based on subjective scoring of information about outcomes) and also, which explanatory variables best predicted success as defined by the different indices. Their finding that ranking of projects using the outputs-based indicator was well correlated with the ranking from the subjective outcomes measure is interesting and worthy of further exploration. However, as the authors themselves note, there is no quantitative, independent data on outcomes available against which to measure the success of the various indices. Because outcomes are so difficult to measure directly, and may also not be achieved over the small timescale of a funded project, indices based on outputs will always be needed. Underlying this approach is an assumption that there is a mechanism that links delivery of the outputs with delivery of outcomes. This is often not explicit. If assumptions as to linkages between outputs and outcomes were more explicitly spelt out, both in project proposals and reports, alongside the evidence upon which the assumption is based, output measures would become more valuable for assessing project success. Howe & Milner-Gulland (2012) also investigated the internal consistency (how different assessors would score an individual project using the same index) of two of the possible indices. While they found a high level of agreement between different assessors scoring the same projects with the same index, the existence of an outlier was revealing. The majority of their assessors came from a very similar academic background, while the one from a different discipline (pest-management rather than conservation), scored projects quite differently. It is likely that world view plays an important role in what an individual considers as success in bs_bs_banner

Despite the impression of doom and gloom concerning the fate of the world’s wildlife that one can gather from the media, there are in fact many success stories from recent decades where populations of various species have stabilized or recovered. However, learning to live with these conservation success stories is often harder than bringing about the initial recovery. European large carnivores are a case in point, especially the wolf (Canis lupus). Following the changes in public opinion and policy that began appearing in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, wolf populations have begun to recolonize many parts of Europe, such as Scandinavia, the French and Italian Alps, and the German lowlands, from which they had been absent for many decades. The response has been an explosion of conflict, both of a material and economic nature (caused mainly by depredation on livestock; Kaczensky, 1999) and of a social and political nature (focusing mainly on the symbolic aspects of this recovery; Skogen, Mauz & Krange, 2006; Dickman, 2010). The case of wolves also illustrates the diversity of conflicts that can emerge, that go far beyond the simple economic conflicts and into areas where perceptions are just as important as reality. Seals are a clear marine parallel to terrestrial wolves in both their conservation history and the range of conflicts that their conservation has produced, with salmon taking the place of sheep as the main victims, and farmers and hunters being replaced by fishermen of various types as the main protagonists. Addressing such conflicts, be they in Scottish estuaries, European mountains or Scandinavian forests, requires a three-step process. Firstly, there is a need to recognize the genuine existence of a conflict and the equal legitimacy of the diverse dimensions along which a conflict can be expressed. Secondly, there is a need to understand the functional mechanisms behind the conflict, including both the ecological and the sociological/political aspects. Only when these two steps have been completed is it possible to move onto the third step of identifying potential conflict reduction, mitigation or compensation measures. The paper by Graham et al. (2011) is a welcome contribution to the second step of this heuristic framework and is set in the context of the conflict between seals and salmon fishermen. Killing carnivores and seals is controversial with the public and may endanger their conservation status (Treves, 2009). Graham et al. (2011) seek to explore the evidence for the existence of problem individuals (sensu Linnell et al., 1999) among the seal population, which are responsible for a disproportional impact on salmon. The idea is that a more selective removal (i.e. killing) of these individuals, if they exist, would create less of a conflict with the public’s sensibilities and with seal conservation than a more widespread use of lethal control across the whole seal population. This testing of an underlying management assumption is a crucial step toward a robust and knowledge-based management system. In their paper, Graham et al. (2011) draw on multiple lines of evidence to indicate that there may well be some individuals that disproportionally make use of rivers and that seals in rivers feed more on salmon and trout than other seals. Taken in isolation, none of their data would be strong enough to draw conclusions. Their sample size for investigating seal diet is particularly small. However, when taken together, the multiple lines of evidence certainly present a strong case for the existence of problem, or ‘rogue’ seals, although there is clearly a need for more research on the topic. Comparative telemetry data from rogue and nonrogue seals would have been particularly interesting as it has often been used in comparative studies of terrestrial carnivores (e.g. Odden et al., 2002), as would the use of welldesigned adaptive management experiments where the impact of seal removal was monitored. The important question is how this new information is used in the context of seal management. This latest paper goes a long way to testing the assumption of the existence of rogue seals, which is part of the model presented earlier by Butler et al. (2006). However, there is still a little understanding of exactly how much time each rogue seal spends in the rivers, which will be crucial to understanding the potential impact on salmon runs of removing these individuals. This opens up for a fascinating and complex debate about the place of lethal control in conflict management of predatory mammals in general (Treves, 2009). On the one hand, lethal control is often used in the belief that removing certain individuals or a proportion of the population will actually achieve measurable changes (such as reduction in Animal Conservation. Print ISSN 1367-9430

Global biodiversity is increasingly under threat and species loss has prompted the argument that our natural world is experiencing a sixth major extinction event (PimmB Woodroffe, 2000; Treves & Karanth, 2003; Whitman et al., 2004). Parasites are increasingly linked to population impacts in wild felid and canid species (Pedersen et al., 2007). Many predator species exist in small and fragmented populations, vulnerable to stochastic events and other ongoing sources of population loss, which can drive them locally, if not globally, extinct. The Iberian lynx is a key example of an imperiled predator and is currently the most endangered felid in the world (Nowell & Jackson, 1996; Baillie, Hilton-Taylor & Stuart, 2004). This species may lose the survival battle without intense and continued conservation intervention. In their paper, Lopez et al. (2009) provide an excellent example of endangered species management, which demonstrates the importance of long-term population monitoring programs and the effectiveness of careful intervention design. Through their monitoring program, the authors identify the emergence of feline leukemia virus (FeLV) in the core population of Iberian lynx on the Iberian Peninsula. This pathogen is commonly found in domestic cats, which are considered the primary host (Arjona et al., 2007). While previous low-level FeLV exposure had been identified in the Iberian lynx population before the 2007 outbreak (Luaces et al., 2008; Meli et al., 2009), no associated mortality or other impacts had been identified. Then, inexplicably, FeLV emergence in 2007 causes an outbreak with mortality levels that threaten the survival of the species. Viral sequence from the 2007 outbreak is distinct from previous infections in the population but consistent with transmission from locally infected cats (Meli et al., 2009). In response to the outbreak, a FeLV control program is undertaken by the authors and other partners, which utilizes a test, removal and vaccination approach in Iberian lynx coupled with reduction of the sympatric feral cat population. It is successful and FeLVassociated mortality in the Iberian lynx ceases. What can we learn from the approach taken by Lopez and colleagues? Firstly, intervention for the Iberian lynx disease outbreak is designed and implemented through a partnership approach between many national stakeholders, project participants and experts. Often in wildlife management crises, consultation and inclusiveness of stakeholders is avoided in order to streamline processes and expedite action. But this can backfire when partner agencies and stakeholders are required in downstream management activities. This paper serves as a reminder that wildlife management is better implemented inclusively rather than exclusively. Secondly, this study demonstrates the dynamic and unpredictable nature of pathogen invasion outcomes in a population. In this case, FeLV invasion in the population was not identified as an important problem but this changed dramatically in the 2007 outbreak. This highlights the danger of defining the threat level of a pathogen for a species. It is becoming clearer that pathogen behavior can vary widely between species, and within and between populations over space and time. A number of factors influence pathogen invasion outcomes as they operate and interact at the level of the host, pathogen and/or the environment, which can influence host susceptibility and/or pathogen virulence and change the nature of an outbreak in a susceptible host population (Hudson et al., 2002). Thus, as in forensic sciences, we are reminded to be cautious with ‘pathogen profiling’ or reliance on expected behavior of a pathogen, as seen here in the divergent nature of FeLV invasion in Iberian lynx or for example, distemper outbreaks in African wild dogs in Botswana (Alexander et al., 1996; Alexander et al., 2008)

Scientists lead a double life as scientist and citizen. The scientist seeks objectivity so as to not compromise interpretation of the results of their studies. The citizen is filled with passions and aversions that necessarily introduce subjectivity when navigating the complexity of the world. Biologists are scientists and citizens of local and national communities; correspondingly, biologists versed in the complexity of nature and the uncertainty of science should voice their informed opinions. The scientist and citizen require distinction, nonetheless. Once the results of the research are subjected to rigorous peer review so that the objectivity of science is assured and the inescapable uncertainty emphasized, then scientists ‘. . . can shift gears and tell us (the public) the meaning they themselves find in those results, as well as the actions that they would like to see adopted in response to their findings’ (Limerick & Puska, 2003, p. 25). Separating science and advocacy is crucial and should be complete. Advocacy sometimes surfaces in the pages of peer-review science journals in a scientific report, a practice that should be discouraged. Plenty of avenues for advocacy exist, including the scientific journals that publish scientific reports, in sections clearly identifiable as advocacy, opinion, point of view, perspective and the like. Rob Ramey is a self-proclaimed advocate for changing the Endangered Species Act (see New York Times, 27 June 2004). Like Governor Bill Owens of Colorado who believes in ‘. . . a natural order, which means that some species will always be sublimated while other species are on the ascendant’, Ramey advocated that we should not waste our conservation resources on the ‘little twigs’ (referring to the tree of life) at the expense of the ‘big branches’. ‘We just have to understand that we may have to lose some of the little twigs out there. That means that some groups will lose their ESA cash cows, but it’s for the long-term good’ (Westword, 1/20/05). In the first paragraph of the Animal Conservation paper where Ramey sets the stage for the research, his advocacy continues: ‘If defensible data are lacking and a protected organism is not distinguishable with a high degree of certainty from neighbouring, nonthreatened relatives, considerable financial and logistical conservation effort may be misallocated at the expense of other endangered organisms.’ It appears that the purpose of the Ramey et al. (2005) paper is to make the task of maintaining biological diversity less expensive. We are led to believe that the Endangered Species listing of meadow jumping mouse subspecies was a costly error demanding correction. This is hardly science; nonetheless, this brand of advocacy masquerading as science has its supporters. The Governor’s Office of the State of Wyoming, the organization Coloradan’s for Water Conservation and Development (not an environmental group), The Colorado Association of Home Builders, the Republican Senator Wayne Allard and others applauded Ramey’s work because it resulted in ‘. . . removing a costly listing that has stymied people, businesses, and government in our state’ (Senator Wayne Allard). Ramey et al. (2005) obliterated the distinction between scientist and citizen. He has made abundantly clear that the ‘little twigs’ (what Governor Bill Owens refers to as ‘obscure creatures’) need pruning to save the ‘big branches’ (e.g. condors and bighorn sheep). To do so, science was corrupted. For example, in the absence of data, Ramey et al. (2005, p. 340) wrote: ‘While the absence of evidence does not necessarily mean there is evidence of absence, there do not appear to be any adaptive differences that prevent the Z. hudsonius subspecies in this study from being ecologically exchangeable. We therefore cannot reject the null hypothesis of historic or recent ecological exchangeability.’ In other words, because there are no data showing adaptive differences between subspecies, the subspecies are ecologically redundant. Such a sweeping and important biological conclusion is not legitimate without doing the difficult, time consuming and costly tests of whether related species are actually ecologically equivalent. Additionally, Ramey et al. (2005, p. 338) estimated gene flow from FST values derived from microsatellite data and concluded that the hypothesis of genetic exchangeability could not be rejected, even though estimation of gene flow using FST has been severely criticized and discredited (Whitlock & McCauley, 1999); moreover, Ramey et al. failed to note that analysis of microsatellites using FST grossly overestimates gene flow, ensuring that the null hypothesis cannot be rejected based on the criterion (Hedrick, 1999). Other examples of unsound analysis and mistaken interpretation pepper the paper Sublimate means to express an instinctual impulse (like sexuality) into a socially more acceptable activity; I suspect he meant subjugate (i.e. to conquer).

While we certainly appreciate the concerns of Martin (2006) about the quality of papers published in our journal as well as the quality and integrity of our peer-review process, we would like to reassure readers that his concerns about our review process are unfounded, and in doing so mention also that concerns about quality of analyses are ubiquitous, regardless of the methods used. Martin’s (2006) first objection to the Ramey et al. (2005) publication is with the perceived advocacy in the absence of peer review. While scientific objectivity in conservation biology, in particular, is difficult (many of us become biologists because of our love of nature), Martin is absolutely correct that the peer-review system should, among other things, guard against blatant advocacy, especially in the face of conflicting data. Yet unlike Martin’s letter, the Ramey et al. (2005) paper was passed through a standard peer-review process. Indeed, the first submission was rejected due to two reviewers who were unconvinced by both the analyses and the data. Both reviewers, however, recommended that the authors be encouraged to resubmit if their concerns could be addressed. As the editor assigned to this paper, I concurred with this assessment and rejected the paper with encouragement to resubmit. The Ramey team then collected the additional data (microsatellite data as a nuclear complement to their mtDNA sequence data) and performed additional analyses as suggested by the reviewers, and resubmitted their paper. This revised draft went out for a second round of full review (a more rigorous standard than in many journals). I sent this paper back to one of the original reviewers (the harshest – as is my own personal policy) as well as a ‘fresh’ reviewer (which is also a standard of mine to make sure that the paper still has good flow and consistency). These reviewers were more favourable to this revised draft, but still had concerns which were subsequently addressed by the authors in a final submission. As the editor, I then examined the final paper and found that the concerns of the reviewers had been addressed. While we obviously cannot disclose the identity of the reviewers, they were, contrary to Martin’s speculation, experts in population genetics and conservation genetics. Thus, the peer-review process of this paper was of at least standard rigour. Martin offers two lines of evidence of ‘advocacy’ by Ramey. The first is citing Ramey as someone who ‘is a selfproclaimed advocate for changing the Endangered Species Act’. I would argue that most conservation biologists would be in this same camp. There are many scientific difficulties with the Act as it stands; however, opening up that for review opens up many doors for political input that could even further reduce the scientific input into such questions. Of course, as a journal, we do not solicit opinions about national conservation policy from authors before we make decisions on manuscripts. The decisions are based on peer review (as described above). Martin’s second line of evidence is the following quote from Ramey et al. (2005): ‘If defensible data are lacking and a protected organism is not distinguishable with a high degree of certainty from neighbouring, non-threatened relatives, considerable financial and logistical conservation effort may be misallocated at the expense of other endangered organisms.’ In my view (as an alternative peer reviewer), this is not advocacy but straightforward common sense. Funds for endangered species are very limited. Why would you want to spend these precious resources on taxa that are originally based on weak data and do not hold up to scientific scrutiny. It seems as thoughMartin is advocating to ignore the science altogether whereas Ramey et al. (2005) clearly state ‘If defensible data are lacking . . .’. Rather than making ‘the task of maintaining biological diversity less expensive’, Ramey seems simply to be arguing for those precious resources to be more carefully allocated to species of truly high need for conservation. Finally, Martin critiques his perception of the ‘peer review process orchestrated by the journal Animal Conservation’ and rates it miserable. I am the one who ‘orchestrated’ the peer review along what I thought (and still think) are standard peer-review practices (as described above). In addition to our own peer review, the Ramey work has also been extensively reviewed by 14 peers via the US Forest Service and these reviews are available online (http://mountain-prairie.fws.gov/preble/). As one can quickly see from Martin’s critique, advocacy is alive and well in the science of conservation biology and advocates fall out on both sides of the issues. In this, as in many other cases, conclusions are debatable, and Animal Conservation, like other scientific journals, is the correct place for those scientific uncertainties to be expounded and debated. In this same issue, Ramey et al. respond to the scientific critique of their article. While I disagree with the recommendation of retraction, certainly standard scientific practice would be to strongly support Martin’s recommendation to acquire independent replication of the study for the strongest conclusion. It is through the preponderance of evidence that these legal

One of the most difficult questions in conservation science is when we as humans should intervene in natural ecological and evolutionary problems. Even when there are presumed successes, such as in bringing back populations from decline or ridding areas of invasive species, there is the feeling that we have not necessarily done the right thing – the natural process has to some extent been tampered with. Perhaps the hottest scientific topic in this regard is whether charismatic species (often carnivores) benefit genetically or ecologically when individuals from outside populations are introduced into declining ones. In this issue is a series of articles evaluating the successes, failures and contentious issues concerning introductions and consequent long-term management of the Florida panther. Because of the strong feelings aroused by this set of articles, we feel it is important to clarify the editorial process that took place. The original manuscript by Pimm, Dollar & Bass (2006) was submitted on 28 September 2004. Accompanying the submission was an extensive cover letter explaining the context and history of the work, including a statement from Pimm acknowledging that the management of the Florida panther was controversial. Pimm stated that if Animal Conservation were to accept the paper, he would request that Dave Maehr, one of the principal researchers long involved with the panther issue, be sent the manuscript for comment. The manuscript was reviewed by two external referees. On 10 January 2005, the paper was rejected with encouragement to resubmit if the authors could respond thoroughly and effectively to the referees’ comments. A revised manuscript was received on 16 April 2005. The paper was re-reviewed and acceptance was recommended following further revision. The editors finally accepted the manuscript on 4 August 2005. We subsequently decided to select the paper as a ‘featured article’ and solicited invited replies from experts in the field (including David Maehr, Gus Mills, Scott Creel and others). Through the course of this process, concerns were raised about the provenance of the data used by Pimm et al. (2006), leading to a protracted series of reviews, commentaries and investigations. In the editorial office, we considered the extent to which Pimm et al. (2006) used only publicly accessible information (i.e. a government report by Land et al., 2004) for their analyses. We satisfied ourselves that the information analyzed was appropriately gathered in a meta-analysis-type fashion; that is, individual animals, their relatedness and population structure could be gleaned from the databases publicly available. Following months of investigation, the editors concluded in January 2006 that the results were reliably based on data in the public domain. On this basis, we went ahead with the publication of the Pimm et al. (2006) paper. Conservation science proceeds by examining new questions and collecting necessary information that will better inform whether panthers and other threatened species are more viable when we as humans do meddle. We hope that the publication of these papers will further this science by allowing others to effectively address these issues, both by verification and by extension.

Anthropogenic activities are one of the main threats to species living in human‐dominated landscapes and can promote behavioral changes in birds. This paper presents a novel approach to test how a migratory species responds to habitat alterations occurring in nesting territories during winter, when the species is absent. From 2000 to 2016, we collated territory and nest monitoring data for the endangered Egyptian vulture Neophron percnopterus in the north of Spain, to test the effects of overwinter habitat alterations (OHA) around breeding territories on the species reproductive output. We monitored 70 different nest sites and observed OHA around the nesting area in 39 cases. Probability of switching to another nesting site almost tripled after OHA. Pairs that switched experienced substantially decreased breeding success and avoided reusing the nest for 4.8 ± 4.64 years. The presence of determinate landscape elements that provide screening, such as forest patches, increased nest reoccupancy probability after OHA by more than 0.3, to 0. 55 (compared to 0.24 when no screening was present). We also found that the distance and the situation of the OHA were critical factors explaining reproduction probabilities at nest sites. Our results demonstrate how OHA can strongly impact the breeding behavior of long‐lived species. This highlights the need to examine the long‐term impact of OHA rather than focusing only on disturbances during sensitive periods, as is often the case with habitual mitigation measures.

The trade and consumption of bushmeat are a major threat to biodiversity across the tropics. Conservationists have traditionally advocated for stricter regulation and enforcement as a way to control these practices, with less attention given to consumers and the management of the demand. Yet, it is clear that without adequately tackling demand, it is impossible to effectively curb the bushmeat trade. In this paper, we describe an intervention to reduce demand for bushmeat in northern Tanzania. The intervention was centered around the 1‐h radio show My Wildlife – My Community which included 15‐min episodes of the radio drama Temboni. Each episode of the radio drama was accompanied by a 45‐min interactive call‐in show featuring interviews with experts and local information about available community resources. We evaluated this intervention using a Before‐After‐Control‐Impact framework based on longitudinal data from 168 respondents. To account for the fact that respondents volunteered to be exposed to the intervention, in this case the radio show, we used a matching algorithm together with regression to ensure that we could build a credible counterfactual group. Our analysis did not uncover any differences in outcomes between the treatment and control groups, and thus no evidence of the intervention achieving its initial goals. One potential causal mechanism that could have led to this outcome is the low audience penetration rate. Fewer than 40% of respondents listened to the show and among those who did, only about 20% listened to five of more episodes. This research highlights the challenges of implementing and evaluating interventions delivered through mass media in developing countries, and the importance of reporting on interventions even when there is no evidence that they achieved their initial goals. Only through robust evaluation of behavior change interventions and the sharing of lessons learned can conservationists successfully tackle complex issues such as the bushmeat trade.

Global trait-based analyses can shed light on the factors predisposing species to high extinction risk, and can help bridge knowledge gaps in speciose and poorly known taxa. In this paper, I conduct the first global comparative study of crayfish extinction risk. I collated data on intrinsic (biology and ecology) and extrinsic (environment and threats) factors for 450 crayfish species assessed on the IUCN Red List. Phylogenetic multiple regression models were used to identify correlates of risk in all species; in centres of diversity (American cambarids and Australian parastacids); and among threat types (agriculture, water management, pollution). I assessed the relative ability of threat maps quantifying specific threats (e.g. river fragmentation, mercury deposition) or a generic threat (human population density) to predict crayfish extinction risk. I also quantified the effects of range size on extinction risk with variation partitioning and multiplicative bivariate regressions. Crayfish with small range size, small body size, habitat dependency on caves, and with ranges in areas of low precipitation, high altitude and high human population density were at higher risk of extinction. Correlates of risk varied between American cambarids and Australian parastacids, suggesting that centres of diversity shape patterns of extinction risk in crayfish. The explanatory power of models ranged between 31 and 65%, with low explanatory power for models based on threat types. Few specific threat measures were significantly related to extinction risk, suggesting that large-scale threat mapping may not be informative for freshwater invertebrates. In the absence of population data for most freshwater invertebrates, trait-based models are powerful and cost-effective tools for understanding and mitigating drivers of extinction risk.

There is increasing concern for the conservation of sharks among scientists, environmental conservation advocates, and the interested public, but misunderstanding among policy non-specialists about which conservation and management policies are available, and which might work best for certain situations, persists. Here we present a review of fisheries management and conservation literature relating to sharks. Policies are broadly divided into target-based policies that aim for sustainable fisheries exploitation (e.g. fisheries quotas) and limit-based policies that aim to prevent all fisheries exploitation of entire taxa (e.g. marine reserves). A list of the pros and cons of each policy is included, as is a decision tree to aid in selection of the most appropriate policy. Our goal is that this paper will allow policy non-specialists, including scientists without policy training, environmental activists, and concerned citizens, to make informed decisions when advocating for shark conservation.

Wild meat is an important source of dietary protein and fat for many indigenous peoples in Amazonia. However, rates of wildlife harvest are often unsustainable, threatening not only biodiversity but also the food security of indigenous peoples. During the last decades, Ecuadorian Amazonia has undergone profound socioeconomic changes which have significantly altered peoples' livelihood strategies. Little is known, however, how such changes have affected wildlife hunting. Based on data from a household survey, this paper analyzes the socioeconomic drivers of wildlife hunting among indigenous peoples in Pastaza, in the Ecuadorian Amazonia. The results of a random-effect tobit analysis reveal that, wealthier households which have higher shares of off-farm and non-farm employment tend to harvest smaller amounts of wild meat. A probable explanation to this is that having a permanent and well-paid job implies an increased opportunity cost of time, leading to a decrease in the time spent hunting and, therefore, decreased wildlife harvests.

Wildlife managers consider animal translocation a means of increasing the viability of a local population. However, augmentation may disrupt existing resident disease dynamics and initiate an outbreak that would effectively offset any advantages the translocation may have achieved. This paper examines fundamental concepts of disease ecology and identifies the conditions that will increase the likelihood of a disease outbreak following translocation. We highlight the importance of susceptibility to infection, population size and population connectivity ‐ a characteristic likely affected by translocation but not often considered in risk assessments ‐ in estimating outbreak risk due to translocation. We then explore these features in a species of conservation concern often translocated in the presence of infectious disease, the Mojave Desert tortoise, and use data from experimental tortoise translocations to detect changes in population connectivity that may influence pathogen transmission. Preliminary analyses comparing contact networks inferred from spatial data at control and translocation plots and infection simulation results through these networks suggest increased outbreak risk following translocation due to dispersal-driven changes in contact frequency and network structure. We outline future research goals to test these concepts and aid managers in designing effective risk assessment and intervention strategies that will improve translocation success.

Given the considerable popularity of community-based wildlife management as a conservation tool, it is of interest to assess the long-run sustainability of this policy not only in conservation terms, but also in financial terms. In this paper, we use cost–benefit analysis to study the social and financial sustainability of a large set of community conservancies in Namibia, one of the few countries where community-based wildlife management policies have been in place long enough to assess their long-term viability. We find that, although the social sustainability is generally good, the financial sustainability is problematic – especially for the younger conservancies: there is no real link between conservation achievements and financial success. This calls into question the long-term sustainability of many of these conservancies: if they are unable to generate enough revenue to pay for their running expenditure, they will eventually fail – even if they are successful from a conservation point of view. Similar problems, linked to the way in which external funders have pushed for additional conservancies to be established regardless of financial considerations, are likely to be present in other countries that have implemented such programmes.

The viability of many species depends on functional connectivity of their populations through dispersal across broad landscapes. This is particularly the case for the endangered brown bear in north-western Spain, with a total population of about 200 individuals in two subpopulations that are separated by a wide gap with low permeability. Our goal in this paper is to use state-of-the-art connectivity modeling approaches to provide detailed and quantitative guidance for conservation planning efforts aimed at improving landscape permeability for brown bears in Spain, with a particular focus on alleviating the barrier effect of transportation infrastructure. We predicted a regional connectivity network for brown bear by combining a multiscale habitat suitability model with factorial least-cost path density analysis. We found that the current composition and configuration of the landscape considerably constrain brown bear movements, creating a narrow bottleneck that limits flow of individuals between the two subpopulations. We identified key locations along the predicted corridors where efforts to increase road and railway permeability should be prioritized. The results provide a foundation for the development of spatially optimal management strategies to enhance connectivity within and between the subpopulations and to mitigate the impact of potential barriers to movement.

Pastoralism impacts the habitat quality of wild animals, while poaching is a direct threat to populations. The demographic effects of pastoralism are well known, whereas the effects of poaching are difficult to obtain. In addition, little attention has been paid to the role of tourism as a facilitator of poaching, especially when tourists feed animals and thus lower their fear of humans. In this paper, we investigate the demographic effects of pastoralism (a habitat quality indicator) and tourism (a poaching indicator) on wild Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) in Middle Atlas (Morocco). Neither pastoralism nor tourism affected reproduction rates. High tourism pressure was related to a dramatic deficit in immature individuals. In groups near tourist sites, about half of the infants disappeared suggesting a high poaching pressure on these groups; as poachers select infants to sell as pets, infants used to seeing tourists probably constitute easy poaching targets. Group size and age structure were unrelated to the intensity of pastoralism. Groups were then half the size of those in undisturbed forests and in Middle Atlas 30 years ago. The effects of poaching are predicted to cause a severe collapse of the population. Our results demonstrate the need for Moroccan authorities to be aware of the conservation issues of Barbary macaques and to stop tourists feeding them. This research work illustrates that the potential links between tourism and poaching should be taken into account regarding species conservation, even in protected areas.

Although it is today accepted that population viability analyses are needed at a meta-population level for most species, usually only single populations are monitored in the context of management and conservation programmes. This paper outlines a fairly general and easy-to-implement approach based on counts and capture–recapture data that allow the dynamics of single populations to be assessed even when they are highly connected to other populations. This approach was motivated by a study of the French population of the slender-billed gull Larus genei, which experienced a sharp population increase in the 1980s and 1990s, suggesting that the species was not at risk of extinction. However, several recently raised concerns indicate that the observed population increase is unlikely to have been achieved uniquely by an intrinsic growth rate. We estimated local adult survival probability at 0.81 (0.79–0.83), which is considerably lower than that of other gull species of comparable size. Moreover, local fecundity observed in slender-billed gulls [0.66 (0.47–0.85)] is lower than that observed in similar species. Massive reproduction failures and the low demographic parameters observed could be caused by chick exposure to aerial and terrestrial predation, leading to permanent emigration. Unrealistically high demographic parameter values would be needed to generate the observed local population increase. The results of our study indicate that connections with other neighbouring populations are responsible for the local population dynamics, and that about 10% of the individuals may be immigrants into this local population annually. However, our results suggest that the population of the slender-billed gull may be stable at the west Mediterranean scale. The high annual fluctuations of population size observed at a larger scale also highlight the necessity for coordinated international action to protect a maximum of potential breeding sites in order to protect the species.

Amphibian declines around the world are a major conservation concern. Monitoring trends in abundance is therefore important. Exemplar models are required, with robust, easily assessed indicators of population size that have high and consistent detection probability and which can be quantified over large geographical scales. Natterjack toads Bufo calamita potentially fulfil these criteria. This amphibian is rare and increasingly endangered in the north European part of its range, including Britain. In this paper, we analyse data on population size (based on spawn string counts) and breeding success (toadlet production) collected over 20 years from all remaining natterjack sites in the UK, permitting for the first time an assessment of population trends of an endangered amphibian at the national scale. State-space models, which account for observation error, were developed to estimate population trends and to assesss the effects of conservation management. Between 1990 and 2009, the British population of B. calamita was approximately stable as judged by spawn string counts and broadly confirmed by state-space modelling, although this indicated that continuing small decline was more probable than stability. Empirical and model analyses also demonstrated that population growth rate was influenced positively by frequency of breeding success (toadlet production) and by grazing of the terrestrial habitat by domestic livestock. The implications of these findings for future conservation management of B. calamita are discussed.

A model of the metapopulation structure of narwhals Monodon monoceros in Baffin Bay, Hudson Bay and adjacent waters is proposed based on satellite telemetry data collected over two decades from six coastal aggregations of narwhals in the eastern Canadian high Arctic, Hudson Bay and West Greenland. In addition, data on seasonal catches of narwhals in 11 Inuit communities are used to provide information on the occurrence of narwhals. The tracking data suggest that disjunct summer aggregations of narwhals are, to some extent, demographically independent subpopulations, with minimal or no exchange with other summering aggregations. We propose that these should be considered separate stocks for management purposes. Year-round satellite tracking of individuals demonstrates that whales return to the same summering areas the following year, suggesting inter-annual site fidelity. We propose that the narwhals in Canada constitute five separate stocks, with limited exchange between three of the stocks. Coastal summer aggregations in Greenland constitute two stocks in addition to two fall and winter aggregations supplied by narwhals from several summering areas. Several narwhal stocks mix on the wintering areas in Baffin Bay, but the metapopulation structure is likely maintained through a combination of lifehistory traits and migratory routes, as mating most likely occurs after the initiation of the return migration toward summering areas. The metapopulation structure in Baffin Bay narwhals will be impacted differentially by Inuit subsistence hunting, depending on the migratory schedule of narwhals and dates at which whales occur in different seasonal hunting areas. It is therefore important to identify which narwhal stocks contribute to which subsistence hunts in order to assess the sustainability of those hunts. This paper proposes a preliminary stock model for this purpose.

Through the analysis of a case study from Amazonian Ecuador, this paper evaluates the impacts of two oil-road management approaches on the structure and composition of wildlife communities (large- or medium-sized mammals and game bird species). In a free-access road, where forest has been cleared and fragmented by colonists, fewer species were found, together with wildlife density estimates that were almost 80% lower than on a control site without human disturbance. In contrast, on the road where access control has been enforced, habitat destruction has been minimal, but several wildlife species showed reductions in their populations, apparently related to changes in the subsistence practices of local Waorani hunters that settled along the road after its construction. In this area, economic subsidies and free transportation from the oil companies, access to the road, more efficient hunting technologies, and market incentives have increased the impacts of hunting by the Waorani, resulting in depletion of the local wildlife populations. Our research suggests that construction of roads in oil extraction areas must be avoided if at all possible. The alternative management of controlling access can be effective for short-term habitat protection, but not for wildlife conservation, especially when oil industry practices alter the social dynamics of local indigenous groups.

The lack of information on the protection status of birds in the winter period is a serious concern, as the survival of many populations depends on this period. Here, we consider the seasonal changes in distribution patterns of bird species in central Spain to assess the value of protected areas (PA) for simultaneously conserving breeding and wintering avifauna. We used a stepwise algorithm of complementarity to select the minimum set of Universal Transverse Mercator 10 × 10-km squares containing all species at each period and then contrasted selected areas in order to test the degree to which breeding and wintering birds overlap. Using Gap analysis, we identified areas that are still unprotected. Our results show both a weak correlation and a scant overlap between areas that are important for bird conservation during breeding and wintering periods. Thus, we conclude that valuable areas for bird diversity differ between seasons, implying that breeding hot spots are not good surrogates for overwintering hot spots. This paper addresses the need of identifying not only important areas for breeding birds, but also wintering birds, revealing potential gaps in current PA networks. Future conservation policies should take these results into account in order to optimize bird conservation, especially considering that the appropriate protection of the bird species overwintering in Spain will, overall, benefit European breeding populations.

The conservation of endangered affiliate species, which are critically dependent on the presence of another species, is often hindered by a poor understanding of the relationships between the interacting partners. The parasitic stage of endangered unionid bivalves constitutes a tight host–affiliate linkage between the mussels and their host fishes. However, the threats resulting from potential shortages of the host species are rarely sufficiently quantified and incorporated into conservation strategies. In this paper, we integrated both host quality and availability analyses to assess the potential threats to the endangered thick-shelled river mussel Unio crassus that result from the impairment of its host resources in Central Europe. The experimental determination of the compatibility of U. crassus parasitic larvae (glochidia) with its potential host fishes revealed an intermediate level of host specificity. At least, some glochidia successfully developed on 14 of the 27 potential hosts that were evaluated. Nevertheless, only three fish species (Scardinius erythrophthalmus, Phoxinus phoxinus and Cottus gobio) enabled the majority of the attached glochidia to transform successfully. Subsequently, our analysis of host availability at sites inhabited by living or extirpated populations of U. crassus showed that the local extirpations of U. crassus are likely associated with an impaired status of the fish assemblage and with the absence of the primary host fishes. These results indicate that the availability of host fish resources may have played at least an additive role in the present pan-European decline of U. crassus and that the evaluation of host limitation without precise data on the host compatibility or host abundance may be ineffective for identifying the threats to particular species. It demonstrates a strong need for more thorough incorporation of host limitation issues into conservation strategies for U. crassus and probably also for other species of freshwater mussels that were previously considered safe from host limitation.

Biodiversity conflict (sensu Young et al., 2010) is one of the fastest-growing areas in conservation biology (Dickman, 2010). Much of the work on biodiversity conflicts has focussed on terrestrial systems (e.g. Woodroffe, Thirgood & Rabinowitz, 2005) but Linnell (2011) highlights similarities across biodiversity conflicts linked to individual species whether in terrestrial or marine environments (e.g. seals and wolves). Thus, while biodiversity conflicts are characterized by their complexity and history, making each conflict unique (Young et al., 2010), there is likely to be a degree of commonality across management strategies particularly when considering the social factors (Dickman, 2010; Linnell, 2011). The Moray Firth Seal Management Plan (MFSMP) is an example of a conflict management scheme that incorporates the use of lethal predator control as a management strategy (Treves & Naughton-Treves, 2005). Lethal control has served as a mitigation tool for both the ecological and social aspects of the conflict. The reduction in shooting associated with the plan has benefited the conservation of harbour seals (Thompson et al., 2007). The impact of lethal control of seals on salmon populations, however, is difficult to measure directly, although modelling has been used to estimate the potential effects (Butler et al., 2006). While the data collected in our study will allow the production of more accurate models of the impact of seals in rivers, it is unlikely to alter earlier conclusions that the impact of removing seals from larger rivers on salmon stocks and fisheries is probably small. Due, in part, to difficulties in measuring salmon populations, direct experimentation is challenging and is unlikely to be achievable in the short term. Maintaining some level of lethal control also helped to engender support for the plan with fisheries interests, whereas a ban on lethal control is likely to have alienated stakeholders and exacerbated the conflict as in some terrestrial systems (Young et al., 2005; Thirgood & Redpath, 2008). In his paper, Butler (2011) contends that fishery stakeholder perceptions are a significant obstacle to moving the MFSMP forward (Butler et al., 2011). Subsequent research on the social outcomes (i.e. decision quality, relationships and capacity-building) of participation in the MFSMP suggests that there has been some progress in this regard (Young, 2010). Young (2010) found that the novel approach of a fisheries-led process combined with a ‘local champion’ enabled the integration of knowledge from all relevant stakeholders, including local fishermen and scientists, on an equal footing, which helped dispel certain deeply held beliefs, and created a better understanding of scientific research. This was evidenced by the fact that stakeholders from the fisheries industry collectively gave the highest score to the technical quality of decisions (Young, 2010). The plan was also successful in reducing the conflict between seal conservation and fisheries, which was one of its explicit objectives (Young, 2010). This does not mean that the MFSMP has been wholly successful in changing stakeholder perceptions, and we agree with Butler’s (2011) emphasis on the need to continue to engage stakeholders. Indeed, Young et al. (2012) highlight the risk associated with the lack of continued feedback to stakeholders of scientific research and stress the need for local coordination groups capable of providing a link between researchers and local stakeholders. While Butler (2011) suggests including stakeholders as co-researchers in future research on seal and salmon interactions, this may not be the sole means of integrating local and scientific knowledge. Our research programme has shown that, with sufficient buy-in from stakeholders, they can become actively and directly involved in the research. The collection of diet samples and the capture of seals in rivers, for example, would not have been possible without the local knowledge and assistance of fisheries interests. Such an involvement gives those stakeholders involved a feeling of ownership of the project, aiding in both the Animal Conservation. Print ISSN 1367-9430

Given the problem of hybridization with domestic cats, there is a growing need to identify populations of the European wildcat Felis silvestris silvestris in order to protect the genetic integrity of this subspecies. In this paper, we use known locations of observations of wildcats or recovered carcasses to reassess the distribution of the wildcat in France and, in cases where carcasses were collected, we use both phenotypic and molecular genetic analyses to distinguish wildcats from hybrids with domestic cats. Spatially explicit multivariate analysis of wildcat' genotypes was then performed to define genetic units. Our study confirms the presence of wildcats in a large area of c. 155 000 km2, suggestive of a range of expansion, and divided into two clearly distinct and unconnected areas – the Pyrenees and the north-eastern part of France. However, European wildcat populations may be decreasing in the French Pyrenees, whereas the north-eastern part represents the main area (MA) of wildcat presence. This extension does not appear to be primarily due to hybrids, as both wildcats and hybrids were located throughout the MA. In addition, we found that genetic diversity of wildcats in the MA is remarkably high, suggesting that French populations are not threatened by a lack of genetic diversity. Furthermore, wildcats of the MA are structured into two genetically distinct populations that are contiguous and probably extend into Germany to form the largest area of wildcat presence in Europe and an area of major interest for their conservation. Our study calls for localized examination of the feasibility and usefulness of wildlife corridors to enhance connectivity between the different populations, thereby allowing sufficient levels of immigration and gene flow within the regional meta-population to ensure the long-term viability of these populations.

Human–wildlife conflict is one of the most critical threats facing many wildlife species today, and the topic is receiving increasing attention from conservation biologists. Direct wildlife damage is commonly cited as the main driver of conflict, and many tools exist for reducing such damage. However, significant conflict often remains even after damage has been reduced, suggesting that conflict requires novel, comprehensive approaches for long-term resolution. Although most mitigation studies investigate only the technical aspects of conflict reduction, peoples' attitudes towards wildlife are complex, with social factors as diverse as religious affiliation, ethnicity and cultural beliefs all shaping conflict intensity. Moreover, human–wildlife conflicts are often manifestations of underlying human–human conflicts, such as between authorities and local people, or between people of different cultural backgrounds. Despite evidence that social factors can be more important in driving conflict than wildlife damage incurred, they are often ignored in conflict studies. Developing a broader awareness of conflict drivers will advance understanding of the patterns and underlying processes behind this critical conservation issue. In this paper, I review a wide variety of case studies to show how social factors strongly influence perceptions of human–wildlife conflict, and highlight how mitigation approaches should become increasingly innovative and interdisciplinary in order to enable people to move from conflict towards coexistence.

California sea lions Zalophus californianus occupy 26 islands in the Gulf of California (GoC), Mexico. Although human presence is prohibited on these islands without a government permit, the law is not enforced and tourism to the islands is increasing. Tourists, along with local fishermen, often come ashore to get close to the animals, which may disrupt behaviors critical for reproduction. In this paper, we report the results of an experimental study on the behavioral effects of human disturbance on California sea lions in the GoC. To document effects, we recorded sea lion behavior immediately before and in 10-min intervals for up to an hour after experimental human disturbance. Our results showed few behavioral responses of sea lions to human disturbance. Adult females and juveniles demonstrated immediate responses, but these were not consistent between years, apparent an hour after disturbance, or evident across other age and sex classes. These results suggest that California sea lions may be resilient to human disturbance and a possible flagship species for ecotourism, but further studies of the physiological and population-level effects of human disturbance are needed.

Chytridiomycosis is an emerging disease of amphibians with global impact (Skerratt et al., 2007). Innate immune defenses may contribute to the ability of some species to coexist with endemic Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) (Retallick, McCallum & Speare, 2004; Woodhams et al., 2007b). We appreciate the thoughtful commentaries by Fisher (2007), Garner (2007) and Kurtz & Scharsack (2007) to the paper ‘Resistance to chytridiomycosis varies among amphibian species and is correlated with skin peptide defenses’ (Woodhams et al., 2007a). The commentators endorsed the ecological immunology approach of the work and its utility for informing conservation. They included excellent suggestions for future studies including the following: (1) Examining population, family and individual level variation in amphibian immune defenses. (2) Testing for mucosal antibodies, immune memory and induction of innate defenses in addition to constitutive innate defenses. (3) Determining how behavioral differences among species affect the rate of encountering the pathogen and response to encounter. (4) Understanding how environmental conditions affect innate immunity. The commentators pointed out that immunity can vary among lineages of frogs (Pearman & Garner, 2005) and stickleback fish (Rauch, Kalbe & Reusch, 2006), suggesting that some of the among-species differences we detected might be due to differences among lineages within species. This is true, however, as the work cited by the commentators illustrates, fully exploring variation in disease susceptibility within even a single species requires very large, complex experiments. For our initial exploration of variation among species, we chose to use single sibships to minimize withinspecies variation, maximizing the power of our comparisons among species. This also minimized the probability of chance differences in peptide expression between infected and control frogs. This was advantageous because we could collect peptides only from uninfected control frogs, because depletion caused by norepinephrine induction could have affected the survival of infected frogs. We agree that much remains to be investigated in terms of variation in innate immunity among sibships and populations; however, it seems likely that variation of skin peptide defenses among species is greater than within-species variation. For example, Apponyi et al. (2004) found substantial variation on a large geographic scale in the composition of skin peptides profiled within two species of Australian treefrogs, and also showed that most species produced profiles containing distinctive families of peptides, and that on smaller geographical scales profiles did not differ among individuals within species. Our own studies of peptide variation among individuals of two populations of Rana muscosa in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California suggest very limited variation in skin peptides (Woodhams et al., 2007b). This suggests that sibship-level differences in skin peptide defenses are not likely to have affected the results of this study in which four species from the same region were compared. Some antimicrobial peptides are constitutive and others may be induced in response to infection (Boman, Nilsonn & Rasmuson, 1972; Zasloff, 2002; Cunliffe & Mahida, 2004; Izadpanah & Gallo, 2005). Here, peptide induction has two meanings: transcription and storage in glands or secretion from glands onto the skin. We did not test for induction of skin peptides in response to Bd exposure in this study. However, the constitutive peptide defenses may be a good measure of immune condition before Bd exposure. Any induction of new skin peptides that may occur in response to Bd infection may not be effective because chytridiomycosis leads to mortality of susceptible species between 18 and 48 days post-infection (Berger et al., 2004; Woodhams et al., 2007a), and production of peptides in granular glands after discharge can take as long as 6 to 421 days (Flucher et al., 1986; Giovannini et al., 1987; Rollins-Smith & Conlon, 2005). Of course the quantity of peptides released from the granular glands after administration of norepinephrine is

To understand the distribution and relative abundance of cave-dwelling bats and to identify those sites that would be important for conservation of bat species, 25 underground sites that had not been previously surveyed were investigated in this 3-year study (from December 2003 to April 2006) in Funiu Mountain of Henan province, China. Approximately 80 000 bats were recorded, representing 12 species. The most abundant species were Rhinolophus affinis, Miniopterus schreibersi and Hipposideros pratti. The roosts were evaluated for their conservation importance. The most important sites in the area are Yunhua and Nanzhao caves, which serve as hibernaculums and nursery roosts to c. 13 740 and 11 803 bats, respectively, representing seven species. By means of cluster and correspondence analysis, the distribution of bat species was different between the two sides of the mountain and was highly dependent on the size of the cave. The underground sites in the south region hosted c. 80% of the total bats, representing 11 species. The sites in the north region hosted 20% of the total bats, representing seven species. Presently, none of the caves in the region has adequate protection and some bat populations are under serious threat. Many large caves that contained large bat populations and several species of concern had been developed as tourist sites, and so some advice on protecting the most important local habitats was sought based on the assessment of the conservation status of underground sites. This paper presents basic data concerning the distribution of cave-dwelling bats and the patterns of cave use on Funiu Mountain. The data will help local governments and policy-makers develop suitable strategies to promote local tourisms while protecting important habitats of animal species.

Neutral genetic markers, such as mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences, are commonly used to discover independently evolving groups of populations in nature. These groups are often considered to be units of conservation because they preserve distinct organismal histories. However, because of the time lag between the isolation of populations and the evolution of diagnostic neutral markers, adaptive traits could be unrepresented by units defined by neutral markers. The concept of ecological exchangeability potentially provides a way to preserve populations possessing local adaptations that lack diagnostic neutral markers. Populations are surveyed for differences in fitness traits, either directly, or by examining morphological or genetic traits that could indirectly serve as proxies for them. The purpose of this paper is to compare the nature of units of conservation defined by neutral gene surveys and ecological exchangeability, using data recently available for the great tit Parus major, a wide-ranging Palearctic species. mtDNA surveys reveal a lack of differentiation across thousands of kilometer. In contrast, studies of body size and clutch size show locally adapted differences between populations separated by a few kilometer, meaning that these populations could be classified as ecologically in exchangeable. These two types of markers have dramatically different consequences for the geographic and evolutionary scale of conservation units. The concept of ecological exchangeability might be an inappropriate way to diagnose units of conservation in birds owing to the time required to document local adaptations and their potential ubiquity. Neutral genetic markers continue to provide a theoretically sound way of identifying units of conservation, and these units ought to be integrated into conservation plans without delay.

The relative importance of genetic factors in increasing the risk of extinction has been hotly debated in the past and has tended to be downplayed by ecologists researching the correlates of extinction of island endemics. More recently, Frankham has argued that there is now sufficient evidence to regard the past controversies over the contribution of genetic factors to extinction risk as mostly resolved. For example, evidence indicates that the majority of threatened species including island endemics have a lower genetic diversity than taxonomically related nonthreatened species, implying that genetic factors such as inbreeding can increase the probability of extinction before extinction events occur. Yet, recent ecological research on the correlates of extinction for over 220 species of island birds found compelling evidence that exotic mammalian predators were the sole drivers of extinctions, and neglected to even mention any role of genetic factors. This paper discusses how two research groups working towards identifying and understanding the correlates of extinction for island endemics can reach such distinct conclusions. Part of the reason for the different perspectives is that ecological research has tended to focus on the correlates of historical extinctions of island endemics while conservation geneticists have concentrated on genetic correlates of currently threatened extant species. Identifying whether the population growth rate is positive or negative is crucial to this debate because even the geneticists agree that inbreeding will have little time to impact populations that are declining rapidly due to high predation rates. Inbreeding depression is likely to have a greater impact on extinction probability in species suffering from gradual habitat loss and range contraction, which typify the deterministic causes of population decline in continental species, rather than the intense predation pressure commonly associated with declines and extinctions of oceanic island endemics.

Wild parrots represent one of the greatest commercial interests in the legal trade in wild birds. Although it is difficult to quantify, there is a considerable illegal trade in wild parrots. Thirty-six per cent of the world's parrot species are listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature as threatened or near threatened, and 55% of these are threatened to some degree by trade. In this paper, we investigate the impact of protection on the number of nests that failed because of nestlings being taken by humans (hereafter nest take) and on nesting success in parrots. We collate data on parrot nest take from published and unpublished studies from Africa, Asia and Australasia, including countries and sites with and without national and local parrot protection measures in place. Nest take was insignificant in Australia, where all studies were from areas with both local and national protection. For less developed countries, levels of nest take were variable between studies, spanning the whole range from 0 to 100%. Protection significantly reduced nest take and correspondingly increased nesting success. Our results corroborate those for the Neotropics; thus, the advantages of protection appear to be independent of geographical location or political and economic conditions. We analysed data on legal trade in wild-caught parrots before and after implementation of the 1992 Wild Bird Conservation Act (which practically eliminated import of parrots to the USA) and found that there was no apparent shift in parrot imports to other global regions from the Neotropics. We suggest that conservation of parrots globally would benefit from similar legislation introduced in other regions, such as the EU (15), which is responsible for more than 60% of global imports of wild parrots.

Since the early 1990s, large and rapid population declines of three species of vulture (Gyps spp.) endemic to south Asia have occurred on the Indian subcontinent and have led to these species being listed by IUCN as critically endangered. Evidence of rates of population decline, cause of death and toxicity is consistent with these declines being caused by poisoning of vultures through the ingestion of tissues from livestock treated with the anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac. In this paper, analysis of repeated surveys in and near protected areas widely spread across India shows that populations of two other vulture species, Egyptian vulture Neophron percnopterus and red-headed vulture Sarcogyps calvus, have also declined markedly and rapidly, but probably with a later onset than Gyps vultures in the same region. The declines continued at least up to 2003. It is recommended that these two species are considered for inclusion in the IUCN Red List and for urgent remedial conservation measures. Research is needed to determine whether or not the principal cause of these declines is diclofenac poisoning and to establish population trends in other scavenging birds in the Indian subcontinent.

Many taxa, including amphibians, have been shown to have a taxonomically non-random distribution of threatened species. There are three possible non-exclusive reasons for this selectivity: non-random knowledge of species conservation status, clades endemic to different regions experiencing different intensities of threatening process and the effects of clade-specific biological attributes on the susceptibility of species to these processes. This paper tests the sufficiency of the first two explanations using extinction risk evaluations from the 2004 Global Amphibian Assessment. Our results indicate that they cannot alone account for the degree of non-randomness in extinction risk among amphibian families. The overall distribution of threatened amphibians remained taxonomically non-random when species of unknown conservation status were omitted, and significant selectivity was detected not only at a global geographic scale but also in country- and site-specific data sets. Furthermore, the same families tend to be over- or underthreatened within different countries. Together, these results suggest that biological differences among amphibian families play an important role in determining species' susceptibility to anthropogenic threatening processes.

Although hyperdiverse groups like terrestrial arthropods are almost certainly severely impacted by habitat fragmentation and destruction, few studies have formally documented such effects. In this paper, we summarize the results of a multifaceted research approach to assess the magnitude and importance of anthropogenic population extinction on the narrowly endemic trapdoor spider genus Apomastus. We used geographical information systems modeling to reconstruct the likely historical distribution of Apomastus, and used molecular phylogeographic data to discern population genetic structure and detect genetic signatures of population extinction. In combination, these complementary lines of inference support direct observations of population extinction, and lead us to conclude that population extinction via urbanization has played an important role in defining the modern-day distribution of Apomastus species. This population loss implies coincident loss of genetic and adaptive diversity within this genus, and more generally, suggests a loss of ground-dwelling arthropod population diversity throughout the Los Angeles Basin. Strategies for minimizing this loss are proposed.

[Extract] The paucity of senior female scientists in science, including ecology and conservation, is a growing concern in the western world. 'Where are the women in ecology?' asked a paper in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment recently (Martin, 2012). 'Women are driven out of research', conclude O'Brien & Hapgood (2012). Despite the increasing popularity of biology, including ecology, among female undergraduates and graduates, the proportion of female scientists in top positions remains low (European Commission, 2009; Martin, 2012; O'Brien & Hapgood, 2012; Adamo, 2013). An increasing number of individuals, institutions and governmental organizations are starting to ask why so many female scientists do not end up being employed in the type of occupations in which they were trained (Rosser, 2008; Hill, Corbett & St. Rose, 2010; Royal Society of Edinburgh, 2012). There are several reasons to address this issue, especially at a time of economic austerity in many countries. Losing trained scientists can represent a sunk cost: conservative estimates put the economic cost of a PhD in the US at c. $500 000 (Rosser, 2008), while each PhD student in the UK receives c. £100 000 from the government to cover stipends and research and training expenses (UKRC, 2012). Moreover, gender diversity is associated with indirect benefits; for example, commercial busi- nesses with gender-balanced staff and management tend to perform better financially (UKRC, 2010a).

The endemic pink pigeon has recovered from less than 20 birds in the mid-1970s to 355 free-living individuals in 2003. A major concern for the species' recovery has been the potential genetic problem of inbreeding. Captive pink pigeons bred for reintroduction were managed to maximise founder representation and minimise inbreeding. In this paper, we quantify the effect of inbreeding on survival and reproductive parameters in captive and wild populations and quantify DNA sequence variation in the mitochondrial d-loop region for pink pigeon founders. Inbreeding affected egg fertility, squab, juvenile and adult survival, but effects were strongest in highly inbred birds (F greater than or equal to 0.25). Inbreeding depression was more apparent in free-living birds where even moderate levels of inbreeding affected survival, although highly inbred birds were equally compromised in both captive and wild populations. Mitochondrial DNA haplotypic diversity in pink pigeon founders is low, suggesting that background inbreeding is contributing to low fertility and depressed productivity in this species, as well as comparable survival of some groups of non-inbred and nominally inbred birds. Management of wild populations has boosted population growth and may be required long-term to offset the negative effects of inbreeding depression and enhance the species' survival.

Protecting systematically selected areas of land is a major step towards biodiversity conservation worldwide. Indeed, the identification and designation of protected areas more often than not forms a core component of both national and international conservation policies. In this paper we provide an overview of those Special Protection Areas and Ramsar Sites that have been classified in Great Britain as of 1998/99 for a selection of wintering waterbird species, using bird count data from the Wetland Bird Survey. The performance of this network of sites is remarkable, particularly in comparison with published analyses of networks elsewhere in the world. Nevertheless, the current site-based approach, whilst having the great benefit of simplicity, is deliberately biased towards aggregating species at the expense of the more dispersed distribution species. To ensure that the network continues successfully to protect nationally and internationally important waterbird populations, efforts now need to concentrate on the derivation of species-specific representation targets and, in particular, the ways in which these can be incorporated into the site selection process. Although these analyses concern the performance of protected areas for waterbirds in Great Britain, the results have wide-ranging importance for conservation planning in general and the design of protected area networks.

Predicting the threat of extinction aids efficient distribution of conservation resources. This paper utilises a comparative macroecological approach to investigate the threat of extinction in Neotropical birds. Data on ecological variables for 1708 species are analysed using stepwise regression to produce minimum adequate models, first using raw species values and then using independent contrasts (to control for phylogenetic effects). The models differ, suggesting phylogeny has significant effects. The raw species analysis reveals that number of zoogeographical regions occupied, elevational range and utilisation of specialised microhabitats were negatively associated with threat, while minimum elevation and body mass were positively associated, whereas the independent contrasts analysis only identifies zoogeographical regions as important. Confining the analysis to the 582 species restricted to a single zoogeographical region reveals elevational range and number of habitats occupied to be negatively correlated with threat whether the analysis is based on the raw data or on independent contrasts. Analysis of four contrasting zoogeographical regions highlights regional variation in the models. In two Andean regions the threat of extinction declines as the elevation range across which the species occurs increases. In the presence of substantial human populations on high Andean plateaus, a species with a greater elevational range may be more likely to persist at some (relatively) unsettled altitudes. In Central South America, the strongest predictor of threat is minimum elevation of occurrence: species with a lower minimum are less threatened. The minimum elevation result suggests that lowland species experiencing an ecological limit to their minimum elevation (min. elevation >0 m) may be more at risk than those not experiencing such a limit (min. elevation = 0 m). Finally, in southern Amazonia, where there is little altitudinal variation, the only weak predictors of threat are body size, larger species being more threatened, and number of habitats, species occupying more habitats being less threatened. These contrasting results emphasise the importance of undertaking extinction risk analyses at an appropriate geographical scale. Since the models explained only a low percentage of total variance in the data, the effects of human-mediated habitat disturbance across a wide range of habitats may be important.

Many species have strong habitat preferences that directly influence population viability. For successful reintroduction of threatened populations that rely on habitat structures, the correct placement of artificial structures is also important to population persistence. In this paper, we present a hierarchical approach to the problem of translocating animals that rely on permanent habitat structures, in which we first use population dynamics data to identify areas of suitable habitat, and then identify optimal configuration for habitat structures. We use data collected from a non-endangered, conspecific population of the endangered riparian woodrat (Neotoma fuscipes riparia) to examine the degree to which the distribution of dens in translocation sites might influence the likelihood that animals persist in their new environment. We characterize the habitats in which dens occur, analyze their spatial clustering, and compare them to temporal changes in population status for sex and age classes. We compare the potential efficacy of translocation efforts using spatial analysis versus solely habitat-based approaches and identify the optimal spatial configuration of dens that should be considered in this translocation effort. We found that patterns of habitat use were positively correlated with overstorey cover, and animal weight was positively correlated with understorey cover. Woodrats appear to select den locations on the basis of understorey cover, but also benefit from dense overstorey cover and distance to nearest tree. Our results suggest that in translocation efforts, artificial dens should be placed in clusters within a radius of 15 m, as values above and below this value showed negative correlations with body mass. Translocations should occur after reproductive events, which occur in April and August for woodrats in southern California. Our analyses provide practical guidelines in determining appropriate timing and spacing for translocation events in the context of animal condition, minimizing disease transmission, and reproduction.

Although the conservation of endangered species often implies the definition of priority areas for conservation, detailed information on their distribution patterns is seldom available over a large geographic range. The present paper explores the performance of an alternative data analysis approach, artificial neural networks, for assessing distribution patterns of endangered mammals when data are scarce and noisy. This approach was applied to identify wolf occupancy in Portugal based on information on wolf depredation and inquiries. Artificial neural networks were able to discriminate successfully between areas sporadically used by vagrant individuals and areas occupied by resident wolves, with a low estimated prediction error (around 1%). Only 33% of the wolf range is regularly occupied, being fragmented in five nuclei. These nuclei are surrounded by more disturbed marginal areas, with a source-sink dynamic between nucleus and marginal areas. Selection of priority areas for wolf conservation in the context of the Natura 2000 Network increased twofold the proportion of wolf regular range within protected areas. The good performance of artificial neural networks in assessing wolf distribution patterns suggests that this approach may be applied to other species where detailed records of distribution are limited.