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With the continuous advancement of technology, people are paying more and more attention to the living environment of wild animals. Located at the top of the food chain of the forest ecosystem, the Siberian tiger is a flagship species and umbrella species for biodiversity protection. The effective protection and sustainable survival of its population has far-reaching natural and social significance for China’s ecological security1. At present, the research on the Siberian tiger is mainly concentrated in the biological fields such as genes and heredity. Only a small amount of research on the detection of Siberian tigers and their footprints in static images. Research on the behavior recognition of Siberian tigers in videos is currently in its infancy. In the field of computer vision, as an independent research object, more and more researchers pay attention to the automatic recognition of gait. Based on the human gait model, a standard database for evaluating the performance of gait recognition algorithms has been established to promote the research of gait recognition. development of. This article will use deep neural convolutional networks and feature subspace learning algorithms to extract the gait features of the Siberian tiger from video images and establish a gait model of the Siberian tiger. This will lay the foundation for the identification of Siberian tigers and further research on their health status, and provide a foundation for the wild Provide theoretical support for animal protection.

Large mammals that occur in low densities, particularly in the high-altitude areas, are globally threatened due to fragile climatic and ecological envelopes. Among bear species, the Himalayan brown bear (Ursus arctos isabellinus) has a distribution that is restricted to Himalayan highlands with relatively small and fragmented populations. To date, very little scientific information on the Himalayan brown bear, which is vital for the conservation of the species and the management of its habitats, especially in protected areas of the landscape, is available. The present study aims to understand the effectiveness of existing Himalayan Protected Areas in terms of representativeness for the conservation of Himalayan brown bear (HBB), an umbrella species in high-altitude habitats of the Himalayan region. We used the ensemble approach of the species distribution model and then assessed biological connectivity to predict the current and future distribution and movement of HBB in climate change scenarios for the year 2050. Approximately 33 protected areas (PAs) currently possess suitable habitats. Our model suggests a massive decline of approximately 73.38% and 72.87% under 4.5 and 8.5 representative concentration pathway (RCP) respectively in the year 2050 compared with the current distribution. The predicted change in suitability will result in loss of habitats from thirteen PAs; eight will become completely uninhabitable by the year 2050, followed by loss of connectivity in the majority of PAs. Habitat configuration analysis suggested a 40% decline in the number of suitable patches, a reduction in large habitat patches (up to 50%) and aggregation of suitable areas (9%) by 2050, indicating fragmentation. The predicted change in geographic isotherm will result in loss of habitats from thirteen PAs, eight of them will become completely inhabitable. Hence, these PAs may lose their effectiveness and representativeness in achieving the very objective of their existence or conservation goals. Therefore, we recommend adaptive spatial planning for protecting suitable habitats distributed outside the PA for climate change adaptation.

The use of a charismatic umbrella species as surrogate for sympatric species is often advocated as an efficient approach. However, comprehensive evaluations from a spatio-temporal perspective are few, leaving the long-term effectiveness of such practices remain uncertain. We modeled the habitat change for giant panda and eight sympatric mammalian species using observations from extensive camera trap surveys and remotely-sensed environmental predictors during two time periods, early 2000s and early 2010s. We found that the degree and spatial pattern of the habitat suitability change varied among species. The overall habitat suitability improved between the early 2000s and early 2010s for seven target species including giant panda Ailuropoda melanoleuca, suggesting positive effects of several recent conservation projects in restoring natural landscapes for certain species groups. However, the current nature reserve system designed for giant pandas did not adequately cover critical landscapes for several species, including the two species who experienced net habitat loss, Endangered forest musk deer Moschus berezovskii and Vulnerble Asiatic black bear Ursus thibetanus. To conserve multiple species simultaneously in this region, we recommend establishing nature reserves for other threatened species who share dissimilar habitat needs with giant panda, and adding a widely distributed omnivores, Asiatic black bear, as a surrogate species in central and southwest China. These findings reveal the risk of using umbrella species as a conservation shortcut in protecting animal communities in China, and have substantial implications for other regions where the majority of the conservation funds are directed toward a single charismatic species.

The aim of the present study was to investigate macroinvertebrates from sandy beaches according to their umbrella potential worldwide. A meta-analysis was performed on a global scale, including 13 marine ecoregions. Community richness and species-specific density of 235 beaches and 726 surveys were retrieved from 48 articles. An index (UI) to select umbrella species was applied according to three categories: percentage of co-occurring species (PCS), median rarity (RAR) and sensitivity to human impacts (DS), which was based on a common statistic representing the magnitude of disturbances in meta-analysis (response ratios). PCS, RAR and DS of the umbrella species were compared with the median ± 95% confidence intervals calculated for all other non-umbrella species. Umbrella potential was higher for species co-occurring in different beach types. Most umbrella taxa responded negatively to human disturbances. These taxa also showed higher percentage of co-occurring species than the mean value (±95% confidence intervals) of non-umbrella species. Macroinvertebrates were ecological indicators of human disturbances and umbrella species, suggesting a good cost-benefit relationship for their application in beach monitoring. The baseline provided in the present study on applying the concept of umbrella species on sandy beaches supports the usefulness of these species in the restoration of urban beaches, monitoring of beaches with social-ecological conflicts and their full protection into reserves.

Background and Research Lack of information on the distribution of threatened aquatic species impedes their conservation, thus predisposing them to extinction risk before being reported. Hence, this study reports in Nigeria, for the first time, the occurrence and habitat specificity of the larva of Pentaphlebia stahli (Zygoptera: Pentaphlebiidae) a vulnerable damselfly. Methods Samples of P. stahli were collected in July and December 2020 from a rural stream situated at the Ekor Waterfalls in the Cross River State of Nigeria and very close to the Nigeria–Cameroon border. Some water quality parameters were also measured in each sampling period. Results A total of 27 larvae of P. stahli and 1 teneral adult emerging from its exuvia were recorded in the two sampling periods. The habitat was a forested stream characterized by rapids, falls, and dark rock substrata. Water flows at a fast rate of 1 m in 3 or 4 seconds, thus characterizing a rifle and headwater stream. Dissolved oxygen concentration was between 8.05 and 8.09 mg/L, while dissolved oxygen saturation was ∼98%. Biological oxygen demand was between 1.04 and 1.08 mg/L, while pH ranged from 7.28 and 7.56. Conclusion The stream could be described as having high ecological integrity as evidenced in its optimum range of values for the investigated water parameters and the presence of a threatened species. Implications for Conservation Based on habitat specificity, P. stahli is considered an umbrella species required for conserving other co-occurring species in the tropical stream and its riparian forest.

Despite a long-standing debate about the utility of species-centered conservation approaches (Roberge & Angelstam 2004), surrogate species remain popular by providing useful—or even necessary—“shortcuts” for successful conservation programs (Caro 2010). Flagship species, as one prime example of surrogates, are primarily intended to promote public awareness and to raise funds for conservation (Verissimo et al. 2011). In contrast, the protection of umbrella species is expected to benefit a wide range of co-occurring species (Roberge & Angelstam 2004; Caro 2010). Accordingly, the main criteria for selecting flagships should be based on socio-cultural considerations, whereas umbrellas are principally chosen based on ecological criteria (Caro 2010; Verissimo et al. 2011; see Table 1). Since these two concepts are often confused or mistakenly used interchangeably, Caro (2010, p. 248) coined the term "flagship umbrellas" for those species that explicitly integrate both functions. Indeed, Li and Pimm (2016) recently demonstrated that the classic flagship species, the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), can simultaneously act as an umbrella species, as its protection benefits many co-occurring endemic mammals, birds and amphibians. This challenges the often held views that: (i) the umbrella concept has to be abandoned as it is not efficiently working at local scales (Caro 2015); (ii) most flagship species are weak predictors for efficient reserve planning (Caro 2010); and (iii) ecosystem- or landscape-based conservation approaches should consequentially be favored over species-based approaches whenever feasible (Roberge & Angelstam 2004; Caro 2010). Further commotion in the discussion is the increasingly demanded paradigm shift in conservation strategies to specifically target hidden or neglected biodiversity for its intrinsic value and its contribution to ecosystem processes (Dougherty et al. 2016). This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

The Amazon rainforest covers more than 60% of Bolivia’s lowlands, providing habitat for many endemic and threatened species. Bolivia has the highest rates of deforestation of the Amazon biome, which degrades and fragments species habitat. Anthropogenic habitat changes could be exacerbated by climate change, and therefore, developing relevant strategies for biodiversity protection under global change scenarios is a necessary step in conservation planning. In this research we used multi-species umbrella concept to evaluate the degree of habitat impacts due to climate and land cover change in Bolivia. We used species distribution modeling to map three focal species (Jaguar, Lowland Tapir and Lesser Anteater) and assessed current protected area network effectiveness under future climate and land cover change scenarios for 2050. The studied focal species will lose between 70% and 83% of their ranges under future climate and land-cover change scenarios, decreasing the level of protection to 10% of their original ranges. Existing protected area network should be reconsidered to maintain current and future biodiversity habitats.

Several biodiversity features can be linked to landscape heterogeneity, that, in turn, can be informative for management and conservation purposes. Usually, the more the landscape is complex the more the biodiversity increases. Biodiversity indicators can be a useful tool to assess biodiversity status, in function of landscape heterogeneity. In this study, we developed a biodiversity indicator, based on Shannon diversity index and built from distribution maps of protected species. With such an approach, we seek to evaluate the feasibility of using a combination of target species as a surrogate for assessing the status of the whole bird community. Our approach was spread over multiple spatial scales, to determine which was the most informative. We selected four species protected by European regulation and generated a presence-absence map from species distribution modelling. We, therefore, used the FRAGSTATS biodiversity metric to calculate Shannon index for the overlapped presence-absence maps, at two spatial scales (500 m and 1000 m). Then, the relationships with the whole community was assessed through generalised least square models, at the spatial scale of 4 ha, 9 ha and 25 ha. Results showed that the higher rate of variability of community was explained by the biodiversity indicator at 1000 m scale. Indeed, the more informative spatial scale for the whole bird community was 9 ha. In addition, a pattern emerged about the relationships between biodiversity indicator and community richness, that is worth of further research. Our study demonstrates that the usefulness of surrogate species for biodiversity and community assessment can become clear only at a certain spatial scales. Indeed, they can be highly predictive of the whole community, and highly informative for conservation planning. Moreover, their use can optimize biodiversity monitoring and conservation, focusing on a small number of noteworthy species.

Umbrella species are rarely selected systematically from a range of candidate species. On sandy beaches, birds that nest on the upper beach or in dunes are threatened globally and hence are prime candidates for conservation intervention and putative umbrella species status. Here we use a maximum-likelihood, multi-species distribution modeling approach to select an appropriate conservation umbrella from a group of candidate species occupying similar habitats. We identify overlap in spatial extent and niche characteristics among four beach-nesting bird species of conservation concern, American oystercatchers (Haematopus palliatus), black skimmers (Rynchops niger), least terns (Sterna antillarum) and piping plovers (Charadrius melodus), across their entire breeding range in New Jersey, USA. We quantify the benefit and efficiency of using each species as a candidate umbrella on the remaining group. Piping plover nesting habitat encompassed 86% of the least tern habitat but only 15% and 13% of the black skimmer and American oystercatcher habitat, respectively. However, plovers co-occur with all three species across 66% of their total nesting habitat extent (~ 649 ha), suggesting their value as an umbrella at the local scale. American oystercatcher nesting habitat covers 100%, 99% and 47% of piping plover, least tern and black skimmer habitat, making this species more appropriate conservation umbrellas at a regional scale. Our results demonstrate that the choice of umbrella species requires explicit consideration of spatial scale and an understanding of the habitat attributes that an umbrella species represents and to which extent it encompasses other species of conservation interest. Notwithstanding the attractiveness of the umbrella species concept, local conservation interventions especially for breeding individuals in small populations may still be needed.

Charles Elton proposed that high species diversity and low levels of disturbance provide a measure of biotic resistance against invasions by alien species. While there is some evidence for this hypothesis, there are numerous other factors associated with invasive species richness, and the strength of those relationships is often scale-dependent. Among oceanic island groups, habitat diversity, human population size and economic activity have been identified as among the significant drivers of invasive species richness. However, intra-island patterns are rarely analyzed. We investigate the relationship between the number of invasive seed plant species and human, physical and biotic factors among municipalities of the tropical island of Puerto Rico using Generalized Linear Models. While elevation amplitude and, to a lesser extent, area had significant effects on the diversity of the most abundant invasive species, we found that the best models, according to Akaike Information Criterion, consistently involve a positive relationship between the number of invasive and native species. Moreover, when we examined the relationship between forest reserves and those regions without reserves, proportionately fewer invasive species occur in forest reserves where native species richness is higher, resource competition is presumably greater, and human impacts are no longer as pervasive. Because the invasive species pool consists almost entirely of ruderal species, forest reserves, while not impenetrable, are less susceptible to invasions than the heavily human-impacted landscapes. Consequently, forest reserves may play an important role in slowing the pace of biological invasions on tropical islands.

Detailed knowledge of habitat requirements is an essential prerequisite for efficient conservation of any endangered species. Despite the grain support beetle Aegosoma scabricorne (Cerambycidae) being one of the largest European beetles, and an endangered, disappearing, species in Central Europe, its bionomics remain relatively poorly known. A. scabricorne is known as a polyphagous species on broadleaved trees; thus, to investigate its habitat preferences 174 broadleaved trees (87 occupied and 87 unoccupied by the species) were surveyed in the area of southern Moravia (Czech Republic) in 2015. The species was found to be strongly associated with declining or freshly dead trees that are, preferably, further damaged (breakage of stem or primary branch, hollows, etc.) and it particularly thrives on large trees (diameter >50 cm). Surprisingly, stem exposure to the sun was shown to be an unimportant characteristic for this species. However, in this study the number of exit holes was significantly smaller on the shaded north-facing quarter of the stem. Our results suggest concrete conservation measures to support the species. We also suggest that this species may be used as an umbrella species for saproxylic beetles of European lowland forests.

Increasing connectivity among habitat patches is assumed to mitigate the effects of fragmentation on biodiversity, leading to the emergence of green and blue infrastructures in public policies as corridors facilitating movements of species within fragmented landscapes. But still, the scientific knowledge and tools for identifying critical features that make a corridor efficient for biodiversity conservation, and for guiding their establishment and management are still scarce. Here, we define three types of indicator species based on their ecological requirements and dispersal traits in the context of forest metacommunities embedded into agricultural landscapes in N France. We then evaluate whether hedgerows can act as corridors for forest herb species and if this can be predicted from the occurrence of the selected indicator species. We show that among each socio-ecological group of forest herb species, (i) the best disperser (“scout” species) indicates habitat suitability for the other species of the group, hence predicts a colonization credit; (ii) the species with intermediate dispersal traits (“median” species) indicates forest species richness and composition of a given hedgerow. In contrast, the worst dispersers (“focal” species) have a low indicator power, as a probable consequence of extinction events occurring in hedgerows, where ecological conditions are suboptimal with respect of forest species. The quality of the corridor increases with the width, height and age of hedgerows, but decreases with increasing land use intensity in adjacent lands. We conclude that process-based indicator species can be valuable tools to assess the efficiency of ecological corridors in fragmented landscapes.

Distribution and connectivity of suitable habitat for species of conservation concern is critical for effective conservation planning. Capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus), an umbrella species for biodiversity conservation, is increasingly threatened because of habitat loss and fragmentation. We assessed the impact of drastic changes in forest management in the Carpathian Mountains, a major stronghold of capercaillie in Europe, on habitat distribution and connectivity. We used field data surveys with a forest disturbance dataset for 1985–2010 to map habitat suitability, and we used graph theory to analyse habitat connectivity. Climate, topography, forest proportion and fragmentation, and the distance to roads and settlements best identified capercaillie presence. Suitable habitat area was 7510 km2 in 1985; by 2010, clear-cutting had reduced that area by 1110 km2. More suitable habitat was lost inside protected areas (571 km2) than outside (413 km2). Habitat loss of 15 % reduced functional connectivity by 33 % since 1985. Forest management, particularly large-scale clear-cutting and salvage logging, have substantially diminished and fragmented suitable capercaillie habitat, regardless of the status of forest protection. Consequently, larger areas with suitable habitat are now isolated and many patches are too small to sustain viable populations. Given that protection of capercaillie habitat would benefit many other species, including old-growth specialists and large carnivores, conservation actions to halt the loss of capercaillie habitat is urgently needed. We recommend adopting policies to protect natural forests, limiting large-scale clear-cutting and salvage logging, implementing ecological forestry, and restricting road building to reduce forest fragmentation.

Remote sensing (RS) is a powerful tool to measure and monitor Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) and their environmental drivers. Despite this potential, stronger integration between remote sensing experts and the ecological community could better support biodiversity initiatives. Here we highlight opportunities to harness remote sensing technology to better understand biodiversity patterns, ecological processes and the consequences for ecosystem services (ESs). We argue that tracking many EBVs using remote sensing should prioritize the monitoring of dominant species, a scalable property across multiple EBV classes, for several reasons. First, a few dominant species in an ecological community disproportionately contribute to the satellite spectral signature. Second, a focus on dominance would enable a stronger links to ecological research, as dominance reflects the ecological community context (i.e. relative abundance of coexisting species). For example dominant species should be especially important contributors to many ecosystem functions and services that rely on abundance or biomass, such as carbon storage or nutrient cycling, because of their greater representation in a community. Furthermore, global change impacts on communities may be reflected in changing dominance structure before the losses of species, thus tracking dominance provides an early-warning sign of community change for EBVs. Finally, focusing on dominant species should improve understanding of spatial and temporal dynamics of dominance-driven ESs through RS mapping. Given the importance of dominant species to ecological communities and ESs, monitoring dominance under changing environmental conditions and human impacts should be a global priority.

Ecologists have identified numerous keystone species, defined as organisms that have outsized ecological impacts relative to their biomass. Here we identify human beings as a higher-order or 'hyperkeystone' species that drives complex interaction chains by affecting other keystone actors across different habitats. Strong indirect effects and a global reach further characterize these interactions and amplify the impacts of human activities on diverse ecosystems, from oceans to forests. We require better understanding of hyperkeystone interaction chains most urgently, especially for marine species and terrestrial large carnivores, which experience relatively higher exploitation rates than other species. This requires innovative approaches that integrate the study of human behavior with food-web theory, and which might provide surprising new insights into the complex ecology of our own species.

The effective conservation of species requires some understanding of where populations occur in a landscape. Gaps in this knowledge base (the “Wallacean Shortfall” of some authors) may coincide with hotspots of diversity for different plant and animal species, requiring the cooperation of a number of different federal, state, local and non-governmental agencies for effective conservation. In this example, the distribution and abundance of benthic macroinvertebrates are widely used as metrics for water quality monitoring, but far less is known about these organisms qua species (taxonomic orders EPT—Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera). In this study, we inventoried a network of individual US National Park units for species in these orders. These parks are located in geological, ecological and historical places of interest across the states of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. We sampled these parks in a multi-year intensive inventory in order to determine the composition of the aquatic insect fauna in each park. Since there are no comprehensive accounts of the geographic ranges of these species, we compiled published accounts of species occurrences in these and adjacent states (Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, West Virginia) to construct a potential species pool for each state. This pool comprised our best estimate of the EPT species that might potentially occur in each state. We used these source pools to test null hypotheses on whether parks disproportionately under- or over-protect species in different categories of risk of imperilment. We find that parks have fewer rare (G1) species than expected from a null model, and parks over-protect some of the most common (G5) species in the network. This pattern would be expected if the actual landscape distributions of the most imperiled (G1) species are small and/or disjunct and tend to occur outside of the national parks in the region. Interactions between park shape (and size) and individual species geographic ranges are likely to influence the precision of estimates of the potential species pool within a protected area. More research is needed on the distribution of imperiled species across the entire geographic range of species, and the traditional practice of compilation and reporting of occurrence records by state is not sufficient for informed conservation practice. State natural heritage programs and biodiversity conservation database efforts (e.g. NatureServe) implicitly recognize the importance of species ranges, but our analysis demonstrates the need to assess these patterns at a finer spatial grain in order for these state lists to serve as meaningful expectations of the composition of species assemblages. Our analysis considers only a tiny fraction of the protected lands in the region, and an enormous additional area of protected lands exists where many of these rare species occur. More precise and accurate reporting of EPT species occurrences in this region will allow resource managers to target the conservation of particular species within single parks, or across protected area networks.

Conservation planning is designed to optimize conservation actions when only limited resources are available for managing habitats and mitigating threats, and excels at selecting reserve networks that protect the largest number of species. However, the spatial optimization of the protection of multiple species can be complicated by interactions among those species and incompatibilities in their habitat needs. The challenge is to identify an optimal solution when two species with similar habitat needs cannot co-occur. We propose here a new approach to find the optimal conservation planning solution in cases of species incompatibilities, and demonstrate this solution for a 144 km2 area (a 160,000-cell grid) in northern Wisconsin. Specifically, our study objectives were to simultaneously (a) identify the smallest area needed to meet minimum habitat requirements for every species considered, (b) maximize the compactness of that area, and (c) avoid any overlap between species with incompatible habitat requirements. We found an optimized solution based on potential habitat models for 19 bird species using a novel application of mixed integer linear programming, with a clustering approach suited for large cell arrays. Under this solution, 9.9% of the study plot was sufficient to meet the minimum requirements for every species considered, maximize the compactness of that area, and avoid any overlap between species with incompatible habitat requirements. Our results are useful to assist managers in providing well-connected, sufficient habitat to at-risk species while minimizing costs and land use conflicts.

Charismatic megafauna have been used as icons and financial drivers of conservation efforts worldwide given that they are useful surrogates for biodiversity in general. However, tests of this premise have been constrained by data limitations, especially at large scales. Here we overcome this problem by combining large-scale citizen-sourced data with intensive expert observations of two endangered charismatic species, Blakiston’s fish owl (forest specialist) and the red-crowned crane (wetland specialist). We constructed large-scale maps of species richness for 52 forest and 23 grassland/wetland bird species using hierarchical community modeling and citizen-sourced data at 1, 2, 5, and 10-km grid resolutions. We compared the species richness of forest and grassland/wetland birds between the breeding and non-breeding sites of the two charismatic birds at each of the four spatial resolutions, and then assessed the scale dependency of the biodiversity surrogates. Regardless of the habitat amounts, owl and crane breeding sites had higher forest and grassland/wetland bird species richness, respectively. However, this surrogacy was more effective at finer scales (1–2-km resolutions), which corresponds to the charismatic species’ home range sizes (up to 9.4 ± 2.0 km2 for fish owls, and 3–4 km2 for cranes). Species richness showed the highest spatial variations at 1–2-km resolutions. We suggest that the agreement of functional scales between surrogate species and broader biodiversity is essential for successful surrogacy, and that habitat conservation and restoration targeting multiple charismatic species with different specialties can complement to biodiversity conservation.

The loss and degradation of natural habitats in coastal areas worldwide has adversely affected many waterbird species, changing their breeding distribution and reducing their productivity. Anthropogenic habitats such as saltpans can provide alternative or complementary habitats for waterbirds and mitigate the increasing human impact on natural coastal habitats. Unvegetated linear paths between salt ponds are used by ground-nesting waterbird species to breed but their linear structure may facilitate the detection of nests by predators. This negative effect may, however, be counterbalanced by the advantages of breeding in mixed colonies. To evaluate the importance and the risks of breeding in saltpans we used the Kentish plover Charadrius alexandrinus breeding in coastal saltpans of southern Portugal as a model species. Specifically, we assessed the role of nest-site characteristics, predation and nesting proximity to species with aggressive antipredator behaviour (black-winged stilt Himantopus himantopus) on their breeding success. Kentish plovers selected nest-sites on the edges of paths, with about 20% of water around the nest, and a mean visibility of more than 72%; however nest-site characteristics were not correlated with nesting success. Predation was the main cause of nest loss in saltpans (42%); carrion crows Corvus corone were responsible for most daylight nest predation (58%) and red fox (Vulpes vulpes; 73%) for night predation. An 8-yr monitoring plan of a Kentish plover population showed a linear increase in their breeding success as their breeding season increasingly overlapped with that of the black-winged stilt. An experiment with artificial nests showed a significant increase in the number of exposure days (7 to 12) when these nests were within close distance of black-winged stilt nests. Overall, our results showed that saltpans are an important alternative breeding habitat for the Kentish plover, especially for the maintenance of mixed species colonies.

Sacred forest groves are often located in some of the world's hottest hotspots of biodiversity, and consequently have high potential conservation value. Recent efforts to quantify their value have focused nearly exclusively on a single component of diversity, species diversity within communities, which may or may not be an effective proxy for a second fundamental component of diversity, genetic diversity within populations. We studied fruit-feeding butterfly communities to simultaneously assess to what extent five small sacred groves have retained the level of species and genetic diversity found in two much larger forest reserves. We additionally evaluate whether measures correlate across habitat fragments to investigate how closely these two components of diversity mirror each other. We quantified the diversity and composition of the fruit-feeding butterfly communities at each site and also the haplotype diversity within three specific species that differ with respect to their sensitivity to habitat fragmentation. Of the multiple measures of species and genetic diversity computed, only rarefied species richness was correlated with forest fragment size and even in this case the relationship was weak. Importantly, the limited decline in species richness documented in the sacred groves was not due to species replacements, whereby common, broadly distributed, generalists supplanted more vulnerable species in these communities. Although similar processes are known to drive declines in both species and gene diversity, we found only limited evidence of positive species-genetic diversity correlations (SGDCs), and only in the species most sensitive to fragmentation. Thus, a conservation strategy that emphasizes species complementarity or richness may be ineffective at capturing other critical levels of biodiversity. Overall, our findings demonstrate that even very small forest patches can have a conservation value that rivals that of much larger forest reserves. The implementation of official national and international initiatives that preserve and strengthen existing community-based conservation practices is critically needed to ensure that indigenous conservation areas persist into the future.

Sustainable conservation of tropical resources required understanding of their distribution for effective assessment and definition of conservation priorities. In tropical areas, wild palms are highly valued keystone resources with growing demand for both subsistence uses and commercial trade. Here we focused on eight such species (Borassus aethiopum Mart., Eremospatha macrocarpa (G.Mann & H.Wendl.) H.Wendl., Hyphaene thebaica Mart., Laccosperma opacum (G.Mann & H.Wendl.) Drude, Phoenix reclinata Jacq., Raphia hookeri G.Mann & H.Wendl., Raphia sudanica A. Chev., and Raphia vinifera P.Beauv.). This study tested (i) how those palms distributions may be affected under future climate scenarios, and (ii) if species are effectively conserved currently and under future forecasts for their native distributional areas. Finally, we defined spatial priorities for the species’ conservation. Available bioclimatic and soil data layers were used for the modelling with maximum entropy approaches, and resulting maps were overlaid on the existing protected areas network. Results showed that much of the distribution of the species will remain largely stable, albeit with some expansion and retraction in some species; relationships with protected areas networks suggest that protected portions of species distributions will also remain stable. The areas identified as highest conservation priority differ between models even though the highest-priority areas holding most palm species are located along the coast (from Guinea to Nigeria). Further development of these analyses could aid in forming a more complete picture of the distributions and populations of the species, which in turn could aid in developing effective conservation strategies for this botanically important family.

Current rates of species endangerment and extinction are unprecedented in modern times. Conservation efforts aim to slow down, stop, and reverse threats to species and thus the current loss of biodiversity. However, the extinction risk to species continues to rise. Thus far, research has examined the efficiency and the effectiveness of conservation actions individually, yet, the full suite of implemented conservation actions should be considered. We assessed all implemented conservation actions for avian species listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in the United States. Using data available through the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) we assessed the relationships between conservation actions implemented, population trends, and financial expenditures for all listed species each year between 1996 and 2013. We found positive associations between the amount of funding allocated for a species and their population trend. Implementation of the conservation actions habitat protection and educational awareness were positively associated with annual funding for a species. Our results highlight the disparity in conservation action implementation and resource allocation between ESA listed species on the mainland and on islands in the USA. Together these results and the cause and effect relationships they suggest could provide a pathway toward more effective conservation programs.

Flagship species, especially mammals and birds, are commonly used to increase awareness of conservation issues in marine and terrestrial ecosystems. However, flagship species oriented programs are often ad hoc with initiatives scarce in the freshwater context. Here, we aim to identify potential flagship candidates that would appeal to a broad cross section of society at a continental scale where freshwater ecosystems are under threat from human impacts. We identified 19 species from a list of 299 Australian freshwater fishes on the basis of body size, trophic guild and threatened species status assuming these characteristics of flagship species are transferable from previous work on terrestrial flagship species. We considered the potential of species to be of international appeal but focused mostly on eight relevant interest groups within Australia. This followed the rationale that public engagement with conservation issues in freshwater systems might be more effective if the link between fish species and the decisions people make were better understood, and we acknowledge the diverging interests of stakeholders. This scoping work contributes towards addressing the challenges of connecting societies to the principles of sharing water resources with ecosystems, and represents the first continental-scale assessment of its kind.

Nature conservation legislation affords different degrees of protection to specifically named species, ranging from recognition within the planning system to strict protection from harm and habitat loss. This review considers two groups of species that do not have strict protection but are recognised within ‘development control’ (the process that regulates the planning of land use and new buildings), namely Annex II species of the Habitats Directive (HD) and Species of Principal Importance identified under UK legislation and policy. A critical point often forgotten by the HD's detractors is that Annex II is not only a list of species that require protection but also a list of species that represent criteria for the designation of protected sites. It is not feasible for all threatened species to be protected due to administrative and legal ramifications, so the subset of species listed need to have wider merit as umbrella species. The selection of widespread species on Annex II results in the creation of a better network of Special Areas of Conservation than if geographically localised or endemic species are used, and benefits a suite of rare and scarce species beyond those named in Annex II. Species of Principal Importance enable recognition of invertebrates in the UK planning system even though many of them are not directly threatened with national loss. Given the intense scrutiny to which nature conservation legislation is exposed, it is important for critics to understand the function of legislation and its application in the sociopolitical arena.

Conservation practitioners must contend with an increasing array of threats that affect biodiversity. Citizen scientists can provide timely and expansive information for addressing these threats across large scales, but their data may contain sampling biases. We used randomization procedures to account for possible sampling biases in opportunistically reported citizen science data to identify species' sensitivities to human land use. We analyzed 21,044 records of 143 native reptile and amphibian species reported to the Carolina Herp Atlas from North Carolina and South Carolina between 1 January 1990 and 12 July 2014. Sensitive species significantly associated with natural landscapes were 3.4 times more likely to be legally protected or treated as of conservation concern by state resource agencies than less sensitive species significantly associated with human-dominated landscapes. Many of the species significantly associated with natural landscapes occurred primarily in habitats that had been nearly eradicated or otherwise altered in the Carolinas, including isolated wetlands, longleaf pine savannas, and Appalachian forests. Rare species with few reports were more likely to be associated with natural landscapes and 3.2 times more likely to be legally protected or treated as of conservation concern than species with at least 20 reported occurrences. Our results suggest that opportunistically reported citizen science data can be used to identify sensitive species and that species currently restricted primarily to natural landscapes are likely at greatest risk of decline from future losses of natural habitat. Our approach demonstrates the usefulness of citizen science data in prioritizing conservation and in helping practitioners address species declines and extinctions at large extents.

Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; sage-grouse) is considered an umbrella species for sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) landscapes in western North America. In 2015, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined sage-grouse unwarranted for protection under the Endangered Species Act (1973) because of conservation actions in priority areas. Understanding seasonal movements is key to delineation and assessment of priority conservationareas.Wemonitored radiomarked sage-grouse from1998 to2013 throughoutUtah,USA,to determine seasonal movements. Maximum distances from nearest lek to nesting, summer, and winter locations across all radiomarkedgrouse averaged2.20 km(90thpercentile1⁄4 5.06 km), 3.93 km(90thpercentile1⁄4 8.45 km), and3.76 km(90thpercentile1⁄4 7.15 km), respectively.Maximummovements fromnest to summer,nest towinter, and between summer and winter locations across all radiomarked grouse averaged 5.77 km (90th percentile1⁄4 13.60 km), 11.77 km (90th percentile1⁄4 26.36 km), and 14.75 km (90th percentile1⁄4 30.77 km), respectively. Maximum distance from lek of capture to summer locations was greater for males than females, whereas femalesmoved farther thanmales fromlek towinter andsummer towinter locations.Adult femalesmoved farther than yearlings from lek to nest and summer towinter areas. The state ofUtah’s Sage-GrouseManagement Areas included approximately 85% of the radiotelemetry seasonal locations and >95% when weighted by lek counts.Our results suggest that seasonalmovements could be facilitatedby increasingusable habitat space through management actions, as emphasized in Utah’s sage-grouse plan. 2016 The Wildlife Society.

China has a long history of deforestation and environmental degradation. Because China is also lacking biological reserves, off-reserve conservation is a major contributor to its conservation efforts. Off-reserve conservation in China is primarily being achieved within afforestation and low-intensity agriculture. We compare ant diversity of three habitats: Natural Forest, Disturbed Forest and Plantation, to assess the conservation potential of these multiple land uses. Natural Forest consistently had the greatest plot-level species richness of the three habitats, but this pattern was only statistically significant for arboreal ants. Functional group profiles showed that Specialist Predators were significantly more represented in Disturbed Forest, Opportunists were significantly more represented in one Plantation site, coupled with a lack of Subordinate Camponotini, and Generalised Myrmicinae were more represented in a second Plantation site coupled with a complete lack of Cryptic Species. Multivariate analysis revealed significant differences of ant species composition between habitats. Within IndVal analyses, 17 species were associated with Natural Forest and nine with Plantation. No species were associated with Disturbed Forest. Reforestation and low-intensity agriculture clearly provide habitat for many species, but will not necessarily substitute for undisturbed habitat for many other species, especially specialised species. China’s off-reserve conservation could be enhanced by developing a greater understanding of agricultural practices and reforestation techniques that promote species diversity, especially for uncommon, threatened and specialised species.

The whale shark, Rhincodon typus, is a charismatic umbrella species whose highly mobile nature is not yet fully understood. Whale sharks roam the Philippine archipelago with two major aggregations known to occur at Donsol and at a provisioning site in Cebu. This is the first description of a previously identified aggregation occurring off Panaon Island, Southern Leyte through the use of photographic identification. In total, 93 individual whale sharks were identified, with significant male bias (58%). The mean estimated total length of individuals was 5.72 ± 1.02 m S.D., indicating a juvenile aggregation. Partial or complete fin amputations, potentially resulting from fishing lines, boat propellers or net entanglement, were observed on 27% of animals, highlighting some of the risks human activities can have on this threatened species. Multiple parallel scars, identified as propeller impact, were observed on 45% of animals. Dedicated research seasons in 2013 and 2014 yielded very different whale shark encounters with 366 in 2013 and 12 in 2014, yet highlighted the recurrence of individuals at the study site. Complemented by data collected through citizen science, maximum likelihood methods were used to model mean residency of whale sharks at Panaon Island of 27.04 days. The modelled lagged identification rate showed that many whale sharks return to the study site over time. Whale sharks from Panaon Island were identified through photo-ID and citizen science at other sites in the Philippines, as well as a match to Taiwan, representing the first international match through photo-ID in South-east Asia with a minimum distance covered of 1600 km. Given the highly mobile nature and recent exploitation of this species, management is recommended as a single unit regionally in South-east Asia. Additional research is needed to focus on the drivers of variation in encounters at whale shark aggregation sites. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In biodiversity-rich landscapes that are developing rapidly, it is generally impossible to delineate land use and prioritize conservation actions in relation to the full variability of species and their responses to anthropogenic activity. Consequently, conservation policy often focuses on protecting habitat used by a few flagship, indicator or umbrella species like tigers Panthera tigris and Asian elephants Elephas maximus, which potentially leaves out species that do not share these habitat preferences. We demonstrate an empirical approach that clustered 14 mammals into surrogate groups that reflect their unique conservation needs. We surveyed a 787 km2 multiple-use area in the Shencottah Gap of the Western Ghats, India, using foot surveys and camera-trap surveys. Using ecological niche factor analysis, we generated indices of species prevalence (marginality and tolerance) and habitat preferences (factor correlations to marginality axis). We then clustered species by both of the above index types to reveal four clusters based on prevalence and four clusters based on habitat preference. Most clusters contained at least one threatened species. Low-prevalence lion-tailed macaques Macaca silenus and tigers were strongly associated with closed forests and low human disturbance. But elephants, sloth bears Melursus ursinus and gaur Bos gaurus were more tolerant of anthropogenic impact, and sloth bears and gaur preferred open forests and grasslands. Dhole Cuon alpinus and sambar Rusa unicolor were associated with highly anthropogenic habitat (farmland, cash crop and forestry plantations) with high human use. Thus, reliance on flagship species for conservation planning can both underestimate and overestimate the ability of other species to persist in multiple-use landscapes; protecting flagship species would only protect species with similar habitat preferences. For species that avoid human impacts more than the flagship species, core habitat must be protected from human disturbance. For more tolerant species, conservation in anthropogenic habitat may hinge on policies that bolster coexistence with humans.

Aim Land use change is one major threat to freshwater biodiversity, and land use change scenarios can help to assess threats from future land use change, thereby guiding proactive conservation decisions. Our goal was to identify which range-restricted freshwater fish species are most likely to be affected by land use change and to determine where threats to these species from future land use change in the conterminous United States are most pronounced. Location United States of America. Methods We focused on range-restricted freshwater fish species, identified which of these species are considered threatened based on either the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)'s Red List or the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and compared their distributions to patterns of future land use changes by 2051 under three scenarios. Results We found that 14% of the range-restricted species had >30% of their distribution area occupied by intensive land use in 2001, and this number increased from 27 to 58% by 2051 depending on the land use scenario. Among the 57 species most likely to be strongly affected by intensive land use, only 26% of these species are currently listed as threatened on the IUCN Red List, and 12% are listed as threatened under the ESA. Main conclusions Our approach demonstrates the value of considering future land use change scenarios in extinction risk assessment frameworks and offers guidelines for how this could be achieved for future assessments.

Determining species extinction risk and its drivers is a major goal for conservation biology. The IUCN Red List is widely used for classifying extinction-risk and prioritizing conservation action. However, this system has been acknowledged as biased and complementary approaches are strongly recommended to achieve more reliable conclusions on conservation priorities. Species traits, often perceived as determinant for resiliency to disturbances, have been used to identify potentially vulnerable species, even when data are scarce (e.g. Data Deficient species). We provide an integrative and cost-effective framework for predicting species extinction-risk using data on 195 anurans from the Brazilian Cerrado. We used IUCN population trend and expert-perceived vulnerability to habitat alteration as response variables, to identify traits associated to increased extinction-risk. We used species traits, threat pressure and geographic range to determine which species and areas should have higher conservation priority. We found the IUCN extinction-risk to be underestimated, as many species categorized as LC or DD are actually sensitive and/or declining. We identified breeding site, habitat and clutch size as predictors of anuran extinction risk. We found that > 70% of the biome's anurans have major protection gaps, incurring in high extinction-risk. The southwest and central regions of the biome are the main hotspots for high extinction-risk species and should be prioritized for conservation. Our framework may be particularly valuable to assess extinction-risk and prioritize conservation action regarding less studied taxa and regions with high anthropogenic pressure, but weak government support and scarce funding.

In many regions species are declining due to fragmentation and loss of habitat. If species persistence is to be achieved, ecologically informed, effective conservation action is required. Yet it remains a challenge to identify optimal places in a landscape to direct habitat reconstruction and management. Rather than relying on individual landscape metrics, process-based regional scale assessment methodology is needed that focuses primarily on species persistence. This means integrating, according to species' ecology, habitat extent, suitability, quality and spatial configuration. The rapid evaluation of metapopulation persistence (REMP) methodology has been developed for this purpose. However, till now no practical conservation planning application of REMP has been described. By integration of expert ecological knowledge, we extended REMP's capabilities to prioritize conservation action for a highly modified agricultural region of central NSW, Australia based on the metapopulation ecology of 34 fauna species. The region's current capacity to support the species was evaluated in relation to the pre-European state for which there was known viability. Six of the species were found to currently have insufficient habitat to support viable populations. Seeking locations to maximize overall improvement in viability for these species, we prioritized conservation action to locations near the threshold of metapopulation persistence.

An enormous recent research effort focused on how plant biodiversity (notably species richness) influences ecosystem functioning, usually through experiments in which diversity is varied through random draws of species from a species pool. Such experiments are increasingly used to predict how species losses influence ecosystem functioning in ‘real’ ecosystems. However, this assumes that comparisons of experimental communities with low vs high species richness are analogous to comparisons of natural communities from which species either have or have not been lost. I explore the validity of this assumption, and highlight difficulties in using such experiments to draw conclusions about the ecosystem consequences of biodiversity loss in natural systems. Notably, these experiments do not mimic what happens in real ecosystems either when local extinctions occur or when species losses are offset by gains of new species. Despite limitations, this single experimental approach for studying how biodiversity loss affects ecosystems has often been advocated and implemented at the expense of other approaches; this limits understanding of how natural ecosystems respond to biodiversity loss. I conclude that a broader spectrum of approaches, and more explicit consideration of how species losses and gains operate in concert to influence ecosystems, will help progress this field.

We currently have a meager understanding of the species attributes viewed as important for conservation by children, despite the fact that arguments for biodiversity conservation often hinge on the bequest value of species. We conducted a study of children between the ages of 4 and 14 (N = 183) on Andros Island, The Bahamas to determine how they prioritized wildlife species for conservation based on five attributes: endemism, use for hunting and fishing, rapid decline in population size, visibility around their home, and ecological significance. Children tended to rank ecological significance as the most important attribute for prioritizing wildlife for protection, followed closely by endemism, with other attributes being less important and not significantly different from one another. However, participants in a local environmental education program (N = 67) placed greater prioritization to species experiencing rapid population declines. We also found that boys prioritized use for hunting and fishing as more important for conservation than girls, older children placed greater importance on species with declining numbers and less importance on visibility of animals around their house, and children who had previously fished placed greater importance on endemism. These findings help elucidate how children value biodiversity, and suggest children’s conservation priorities may align relatively well with those of conservation biologists, especially after exposure to environmental education. We suggest that better understanding how children prioritize wildlife attributes for conservation can lead to more informed biodiversity conservation decisions and more effective policy implementation, as the perspectives of children can help bridge the gap between public opinion and scientific opinion.

The conservation of plants has not generated the sense of urgency—or the funding—that drives the conservation of animals, although plants are far more important for us. There are an estimated 500,000 species of land plants (angiosperms, gymnosperms, ferns, lycophytes, and bryophytes), with diversity strongly concentrated in the humid tropics. Many species are still unknown to science. Perhaps a third of all land plants are at risk of extinction, including many that are undescribed, or are described but otherwise data deficient. There have been few known global extinctions so far, but many additional species have not been recorded recently and may be extinct. Although only a minority of plant species have a specific human use, many more play important roles in natural ecosystems and the services they provide, and rare species are more likely to have unusual traits that could be useful in the future. The major threats to plant diversity include habitat loss, fragmentation, and degradation, overexploitation, invasive species, pollution, and anthropogenic climate change. Conservation of plant diversity is a massive task if viewed globally, but the combination of a well-designed and well-managed protected area system and ex situ gap-filling and back-up should work anywhere. The most urgent needs are for the completion of the global botanical inventory and an assessment of the conservation status of the 94% of plant species not yet evaluated, so that both in and ex situ conservation can be targeted efficiently. Globally, the biggest conservation gap is in the hyperdiverse lowland tropics and this is where attention needs to be focused.

Given the limited funds available, spatial prioritisation is necessary to help decide when and where to undertake conservation. One method for setting local scale priorities for conservation action is the landscape species approach which aims to identify priorities based on the needs of a small number of wide ranging species with large environmental impacts. Despite being used for the past decade by conservation organisations such as Wildlife Conservation Society, the effectiveness of the approach for representing a more comprehensive range of biodiversity has never been evaluated. Here we compare conservation priorities identified using a suite of landscape species (n =13) against those using many alternative sets of threatened or endemic species (n = 7-88) to assess the applicability and suitability of the landscape species approach in a biologically diverse landscape (Greater Virunga Landscape, Uganda, Rwanda, and Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa). We defined the minimum area needed to conserve each species on the basis of the species' range size. We found that prioritising for landscape species adequately conserves only 31(35%) species, whereas prioritising for an equal number of endemic species, threatened species, or randomly sampled species adequately conserves 74%, 69% and 42% of species, respectively. We also found that prioritising for one taxonomic group (birds or plants) alone resulted in better surrogacy performance than the Landscape Species. These results question the underlying assumption of the landscape species approach, that managing threats to Landscape Species will also manage threats to all other species, as it is applied in the Greater Virunga Landscape. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Many countries have conservation plans for threatened species, but such plans have generally been developed without taking into account the potential impacts of climate change. Here, we apply a decision framework, specifically developed to identify and prioritise climate change adaptation actions and demonstrate its use for 30 species threatened in the UK. Our aim is to assess whether government conservation recommendations remain appropriate under a changing climate. The species, associated with three different habitats (lowland heath, broadleaved woodland and calcareous grassland), were selected from a range of taxonomic groups (primarily moths and vascular plants, but also including bees, bryophytes, carabid beetles and spiders). We compare the actions identified for these threatened species by the decision framework with those included in existing conservation plans, as developed by the UK Government’s statutory adviser on nature conservation. We find that many existing conservation recommendations are also identified by the decision framework. However, there are large differences in the spatial prioritisation of actions when explicitly considering projected climate change impacts. This includes recommendations for actions to be carried out in areas where species do not currently occur, in order to allow them to track movement of suitable conditions for their survival. Uncertainties in climate change projections are not a reason to ignore them. Our results suggest that existing conservation plans, which do not take into account potential changes in suitable climatic conditions for species, may fail to maximise species persistence. Comparisons across species also suggest a more habitat-focused approach could be adopted to enable climate change adaptation for multiple species.

Given the limited resources available for conservation, it is important that the areas to preserve are selected in a cost effective manner. However, the cost effectiveness of the surrogate species strategy (the use of information on one or more species to identify areas of value for other species for which there is no, or more limited, available information) has seldom been evaluated. In this study, we investigate the opportunity cost of setting aside breeding sites of two forest raptor species (the surrogate species) by evaluating their individual and combined contribution to preserve diversity of polypores (wood-decaying fungi) and birds against the contributions of previously established nature reserves. We use numeric optimization models to compare different reserve selection strategies. Site selection based on nest sites of the dominant raptor species was more cost-effective than strategies using sites of the subordinate species or those processes previously used to select nature reserves in Finland. The inclusion of both raptor species in the reserve selection model further improved its performance relative to other approaches. This indicates that the means by which Finnish reserves are selected could be enhanced by including the breeding sites of these, and maybe other species, among the criteria used to select reserves in the future. These results show that information on charismatic and well-surveyed species could be a cost-efficient add-on to help enhance conservation endeavours. Where there is inter-specific competition for biodiverse sites, and using multiple species is costly, basing reserve selection primarily on breeding sites of a dominant species may be the best strategy. However, further work is required to establish the extent to which dominant species are typically better indicators of conservation relevance.

Ecological surrogacy – here defined as using a process or element (e.g., species, ecosystem, or abiotic factor) to represent another aspect of an ecological system – is a widely used concept, but many applications of the surrogate concept have been controversial. We argue that some of this controversy reflects differences among users with different goals, a distinction that can be crystalized by recognizing two basic types of surrogate. First, many ecologists and natural resource managers measure “indicator surrogates” to provide information about ecological systems. Second, and often overlooked, are “management surrogates” (e.g., umbrella species) that are primarily used to facilitate achieving management goals, especially broad goals such as “maintain biodiversity” or “increase ecosystem resilience.” We propose that distinguishing these two overarching roles for surrogacy may facilitate better communication about project goals. This is critical when evaluating the usefulness of different surrogates, especially where a potential surrogate might be useful in one role but not another. Our classification for ecological surrogacy applies to species, ecosystems, ecological processes, abiotic factors, and genetics, and thus can provide coherence across a broad range of uses.

Foundation species control biodiversity and ecosystem processes, but are difficult to identify. In this issue of Journal of Vegetation Science, Elumeeva et al. show that Festuca varia and Nardus stricta act as foundation species in the Caucasus’ alpine. This paper augments the piecemeal literature on foundation species while highlighting the need for more comprehensive approaches to their identification and conservation. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

To mitigate the ongoing biodiversity crisis in Tropical Asia, caused by extensive deforestation and wildlife poaching, we will need to take more strategic approaches towards identifying and prioritizing meaningful conservation interventions. This, however, can prove difficult for data-limited species. Focusing on the little-studied mainland clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa), a potential umbrella species in the region, we demonstrate an accessible, flexible, and scalable approach applicable to any species. First, we model the species’ range-wide local extirpation threat using a Bayesian Belief Network, taking into account the distribution of remaining suitable habitat and major anthropogenic threats (habitat loss and poaching). We then identify remaining habitat strongholds (defined as large contiguous areas of high quality habitat where the species could survive over the mid-to-long term) and grouped them into stronghold complexes, which we categorized based on local extirpation threat and recent camera-trap survey status. Our results show a 34% decline in the range-wide area categorized as a stronghold due to forest cover changes between 2000 and 2018, with 80% of remaining strongholds identified as having a high or very high average threat of local extirpation. Based on published records, only 60% of remaining strongholds had at least one site surveyed by camera-traps in the last 10 years, highlighting an important knowledge gap concerning the species’ current distribution and population status. Combined, the results of our survey review and threat analysis suggest the species is likely extirpated from all of Vietnam, most of China, and large parts of Cambodia and Laos. Finally, we synthesize our findings, highlight tangible conservation needs, and propose actions for each stronghold complex based on the area’s specific threats, protection level, and survey status, paving the way for the detailed local investigations needed to implement meaningful interventions on the ground.

Tropical forests are facing constant degradation and destruction as a result of multiple threats, mostly from land-use, and increasingly from climate change. Understanding the effects of these threats, and the role of Protected Areas in buffering their impacts, is becoming an essential task to prevent the loss of species. In this study, we used the woolly monkey, a keystone species with seed dispersal functions, as a surrogate to assess the future conservation potential of the Protected Areas in Colombia, a megadiverse country where important tropical forests remain. We modelled the ecological niche of the woolly monkey using an ensemble forecasting approach to assess potential distribution changes resulting from climate change and deforestation. Distribution changes in 2050 were estimated for two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), three Global Circulation Models (GCMs) and one deforestation projection. Additionally, we evaluated the current and future suitable area for the species located within Protected Areas. For the year 2016, we estimated a potential distribution area for the woolly monkey of 413,533 km2 after accounting for deforestation. The future synergistic effect of climate change and deforestation could cause a reduction of up to ∼13 % in the species potential distribution in Colombia, mainly in the Andean-Amazonian foothills and the Amazon region. The distribution area lost due to climate change was exceeded by losses due to deforestation in all scenarios, where up to 65,356 km2 could be lost as a result of forest clearance. The current Protected Area system will not be able to mitigate the impacts of climate and land-use changes, since ∼26 % of the woolly monkey’s range is currently located within National Parks and Indigenous Reserves. This range could decrease by ∼18 % in the most drastic future scenario. Based on these results, we emphasize the need of an integrated approach of land-use planning that encompasses the creation, expansion and connectivity of Protected Areas, along with the strengthening of law enforcement capacity and restoration efforts to halt increasing deforestation. The effective implementation of these strategies is necessary to assist species to track their suitable climatic conditions, especially through the Andean-Amazonian foothills, and will contribute to the conservation of tropical biodiversity.

Woodland-specialist epiphytic bryophytes are both a threatened ecological guild of forest species as well as a precise bioindicator of conservation value of forest ecosystems. However, due to lack of data on distribution, there is no information about their potential reaction to predicted climate change. For that reason we aimed to evaluate impact of climate change and forest continuity on distributions of an umbrella species of woodland-specialist epiphytic bryophytes. We compiled available data on Dicranum viride distributions in Europe, as this species is a subject of Natura 2000 conservation. We provided a species distribution model (developed using MaxEnt) using bioclimatic variables and a forest continuity map for Europe. We evaluated predicted changes in potential distribution for 2061–2080 using three climate change scenarios. We also assessed substratum preferences of this species. Our study revealed that forest continuity is the most important predictor of D. viride occurrence, and next were mean temperature of the driest quarter and precipitation in the warmest quarter. Projected climate change would lead to small losses of D. viride habitat suitability in Southern and Western Europe and increases in Scandinavia, under the assumption of constant forest continuity. Due to limited dispersal capabilities and specific habitat requirements, forest continuity and suitable forest assemblages/vegetation types play a superior role in maintaining woodland-specialist epiphytic bryophytes. For that reason loss of mature forest ecosystems is a more important threat to epiphytic bryophytes than climate change.

Large-scale transboundary conservation initiatives are necessary to respond to threats against tropical forests, and the jaguar (Panthera onca), a flagship and umbrella species in the Neotropics, is an ideal target species for such initiatives. We estimated jaguar abundance and occupancy of medium- and large-sized mammals and birds across a transboundary landscape in the northwestern Amazon biome using camera-trap data from 168 stations; specifically within three management regimes of indigenous and protected lands in Colombia (the indigenous reserve of Umancia), Ecuador (Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve), and Peru (Gueppi-Sekime National Park). Based on spatial capture-recapture models, we estimated jaguar density in the study area at 2.20 ± 0.44 individuals per 100 km2, implying an abundance of 322 jaguars (95% CI = 217–477). These estimates suggest that an entire mega-landscape, which also includes other protected areas and indigenous lands, could harbor as many as 2000 jaguars (95% CI = 1586–3498). We found that jaguar abundance and medium-to large-sized terrestrial vertebrate species richness (totaling 24 mammals and 4 birds) were similar under the three management regimes. Overall, our study indicates that a significant healthy population of jaguars can survive in this large-scale conservation corridor that crosses country borders, a place where protected areas and indigenous territories are key. This study is among the first to take a transboundary approach for jaguar conservation in a protected but still threatened part of the Amazon biome, inhabited by several ancient indigenous people. As a large forest block, this conservation landscape serves not only as an effective buffer against deforestation and a stronghold for jaguar populations and medium- and large-sized vertebrates, but it also secures the well-being of local people.

Snow leopard is one of the top predators and umbrella species of Hengduan Mountain (HM) region. Conserving snow leopard is vital in preserving this biodiversity hot spot. Climate change (CC) is imposing negative influences on snow leopard populations. This research combines and analyses recent research papers on this topic. It turns out that snow leopards are generally influenced by CC in three ways. Firstly, climate change enables forest to move to higher elevation to occupy grasslands, the main habitats of snow leopards. Therefore, snow leopard habitat shrinks and suffers greater fragmentation. Secondly, climate change makes grasslands more vulnerable to degradation, thus threatening preys of snow leopards. Thirdly, CC causes leopards to move to previous snow leopard habitats. As a result, there are risks of competition between snow leopards and leopards. This research appeals for more observation to better analyse snow leopard’s response to climate change.

Successional and other temporal habitat changes may also affect conservation areas and reduce their conservation value. Active management to promote vulnerable habitat features may be an effective, but controversial, solution. Old deciduous trees and deciduous dead wood in boreal forest reserves are examples of habitat features that may be lost during succession, yet several threatened species, including the white-backed woodpecker (Dendrocopos leucotos), are dependent on them. Encroaching spruce have been removed from white-backed woodpecker territories to promote the regeneration of deciduous trees and to preserve habitat quality, although the efficiency of this treatment is unclear. In this study, we measured the canopy tree potential (integrating the number, height and condition) of aspen, birch and spruce saplings, and the number and basal area of mature trees in control and treatment sites 2–12 years after spruce removal. The canopy tree potential of aspen saplings increased on treated sites, along with a decrease in the number of spruce saplings and mature spruce trees. We found no evidence that spruce removal would benefit birch saplings. For both aspen and birch saplings, the abundance of mature trees of the same species increased their canopy tree potential more than spruce removal. Overall, our results indicate that spruce removal facilitates aspen regeneration, particularly in areas where large mature aspen trees are present. The lack of birch regeneration, however, indicates that maintaining a full array of important habitat characteristics in white-backed woodpecker territories may require a more comprehensive set of management tools than simply removal of spruce. peerReviewed