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Conditions capable of supporting multicellular life are predicted to continue for another billion years, but humans will inevitably become extinct within several million years. We explore the paradox of a habitable planet devoid of people, and consider how to prioritise our actions to maximise life after we are gone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are widely accepted as the best means to synthesise quantitative or qualitative scientific evidence. Many scientific fields have embraced these more rigorous review techniques as a means to bring together large and complex bodies of literature and their data. Unfortunately, due to perceived difficulties and unfamiliarity with processes, other fields are not using these options to review their literature. One way to provide guidance for a specific field is to examine critically recent reviews and meta-analyses and to explain the advantages and disadvantages of the various review techniques. In this paper, we examine review papers in the emerging field of wildlife parasitology and compare five different literature review types—configurative narrative review, aggregative scoping review, aggregative literature review, aggregative meta-analysis, and aggregative systematic review. We found that most literature reviews did not adequately explain the methodology used to find the literature under review. We also found that most literature reviews were not comprehensive nor did they critically appraise the literature under review. Such a lack severely reduces the reliability of the reviews. We encourage all authors to consider using systematic reviews in the future, and for authors and peer-reviewers to be aware of the limitations of non-systematic reviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most urban and agricultural landscapes, remnants of native vegetation are surrounded by an inhospitable matrix. Although vagile species come and go, many reptiles, amphibians and small mammals are effectively stranded and declining towards local extinction. In the same landscapes, other areas where these species are absent are improving in habitat quality, both through natural regeneration and active restoration efforts. So, for many species in many domesticated landscapes, there are too many individuals in some patches of decreasing quality and no individuals in patches of increasing quality. One solution to this situation is to move animals from those areas where there are plenty to suitable areas where there are none. These targeted translocations apply lessons learned from revegetation to dispersal-limited animals to in-fill distributional ranges, increase population size and improve both demographic and genetic connectivity, pushing nonequilibrial metapopulations away from extinction via an imposed mass effect. In contrast to conventional reintroduction schemes—expensive, reactive interventions involving highly-trained specialists and captive-raised endangered species—these inexpensive, proactive, community-driven initiatives aim to avert future declines by keeping common species common . Having introduced the wildlife restoration vision, we use two scenarios to illustrate the benefits of the approach—to species, ecosystem function, ecological understanding, restoration practise and public engagement. As well as adhering to best-practise reintroduction techniques to ensure animal welfare is not compromised and avoid detrimental effects to source populations or release sites, we emphasize community participation, data quality and long-term accessibility as paramount to maximize learning opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] A meta-analysis of the effects of parasites was conducted. [•] Significant effects of parasites at the population level were found. [•] A meta-regression of effect sizes on life-history traits was also done. [•] Host lifespan was found to correlate significantly with parasite virulence. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Translocations are an increasingly popular conservation tool, although their use to date has been largely reactive, often attempting to stave off the extinction of threatened species. Recently, a more proactive concept of 'wildlife restoration' has been proposed, involving regular, short-distance, community-driven translocations of common but patchily distributed species within agricultural and urban landscapes. We trialled this concept by carrying out experimental translocations of two agamid lizard species from the Little Desert National Park in south-eastern Australia, where they are abundant, to fragments of similar habitat in the adjacent agricultural landscape, where they were absent, or occurring in low numbers. Study animals were monitored via radio-telemetry to assess survival, body condition, site fidelity, activity area, movement and microhabitat use of hard-release and soft-release animals compared to control animals. Survival was generally high over the monitoring period (up to 64 days) with only six (16 %) confirmed deaths and was similar between translocation treatments. Body condition, site fidelity, activity area, movement rate, and microhabitat use were similar between translocated and control animals. Lizards subjected to temporary pens (soft-release) exhibited similar outcomes to those released immediately (hard-release). While the assessment of breeding and population establishment necessitates long-term monitoring, our short-term findings highlight the resilience of translocated reptiles, supporting the notion that 'mainstreaming' fauna translocations could be a viable and effective conservation intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]