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Evaluating human–wildlife conflict is necessary to reach positive long-term management solutions and aid the conservation of biodiversity. We used indirect approaches to evaluate the Human–Neotropical otter conflict in three river basins with high fishing activity in western Mexico and provided recommendations to mitigate the conflict by identifying the variables that increase the risk of predation of ponds by otters. Human–Otter conflict was moderate, and the opinions of community members toward otters were mostly negative, particularly those of the fishing sector. However, after offering environmental education workshops, the number of people recognizing the importance of protecting the species increased, which could result in the acceptance and tolerance toward otters. Avoiding building ponds at ground level and covering ponds with metal mesh, especially in fish-farms located in the middle and upper areas of rivers, as explored with fish-farmers, merits more experimentation, since it could be a good means for reducing the conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change and land use change are two main drivers of global biodiversity decline, decreasing the genetic diversity that populations harbour and altering patterns of local adaptation. Landscape genomics allows measuring the effect of these anthropogenic disturbances on the adaptation of populations. However, both factors have rarely been considered simultaneously. Based on a set of 3660 SNPs from which 130 were identified as outliers by a genome–environment association analysis (LFMM), we modelled the spatial turnover of allele frequencies in 19 localities of Pinus leiophylla across the Avocado Belt in Michoacán state, Mexico. Then, we evaluated the effect of climate change and land use change scenarios, in addition to evaluating assisted gene flow strategies and connectivity metrics across the landscape to identify priority conservation areas for the species. We found that localities in the centre‐east of the Avocado Belt would be more vulnerable to climate change, while localities in the western area are more threatened by land conversion to avocado orchards. Assisted gene flow actions could aid in mitigating both threats. Connectivity patterns among forest patches will also be modified by future habitat loss, with central and eastern parts of the Avocado Belt maintaining the highest connectivity. These results suggest that areas with the highest priority for conservation are in the eastern part of the Avocado Belt, including the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. This work is useful as a framework that incorporates distinct layers of information to provide a more robust representation of the response of tree populations to anthropogenic disturbances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the recently adopted Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, 196 Parties committed to reporting the status of genetic diversity for all species. To facilitate reporting, three genetic diversity indicators were developed, two of which focus on processes contributing to genetic diversity conservation: maintaining genetically distinct populations and ensuring populations are large enough to maintain genetic diversity. The major advantage of these indicators is that they can be estimated with or without DNA-based data. However, demonstrating their feasibility requires addressing the methodological challenges of using data gathered from diverse sources, across diverse taxonomic groups, and for countries of varying socio-economic status and biodiversity levels. Here, we assess the genetic indicators for 919 taxa, representing 5271 populations across nine countries, including megadiverse countries and developing economies. Eighty-three percent of the taxa assessed had data available to calculate at least one indicator. Our results show that although the majority of species maintain most populations, 58% of species have populations too small to maintain genetic diversity. Moreover, genetic indicator values suggest that IUCN Red List status and other initiatives fail to assess genetic status, highlighting the critical importance of genetic indicators., (© 2024 The Author(s). Ecology Letters published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This article has been contributed to by U.S. Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA.)