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32 results for “Wildlife ecology”
Data from: Detecting elusive aspects of wildlife ecology using drones: new insights on the mating dynamics and operational sex ratios of sea turtles
Offspring and breeding (operational) sex ratios (OSR) are a key component of demographic studies. While offspring sex ratios are often relatively easy to measure, measuring OSRs is often far more problematic. Yet highly skewed OSRs, and a lack of male-female encounters, may be an important extinction driver. Using loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) as a case study, we showed the utility of drones, i.e. unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to distinguish adult males and females in a marine breeding area, using a combination of morphological characteristics (tail length) and behavioural differences (active mating, courting and searching by males versus resting by females). Through repeated surveys, we documented seasonal changes in the OSR. While the number, and ratio, of males and females on the breeding grounds changed massively, the ratio of receptive females (derived from the rate of influx of new individuals to the area) to breeding males remained close to 1:1 for much of the period before nesting commenced. Hence, we show how large imbalances in the number of adult males and females may translate into relatively balanced OSRs. Our results suggest that the departure of males from the breeding grounds is linked to a decline in female receptivity, with female sea turtles being known to store sperm to ensure high clutch fertility throughout the nesting season. In conclusion, while we detected up to three times more females than males at the breeding ground, at present, OSRs appear stable. However, because most males breed annually (versus biannually by females), there might only be ˜100 males in the adult population (i.e. adult sex ratio of 1:7.5), which might become further skewed under expected climate change scenarios; thus, we need to identify the minimum number of males required to prevent extinction. Finally, we highlight the use of UAVs for assessing the mating dynamics of other marine, terrestrial or avian species, in which adults might exhibit visually detectable differences, such as sexual dimorphism, external body characteristics or grouping tendencies.
A systematic review of global road ecology camera trap studies that monitored animals' use of wildlife crossings in road-fragmented landscapes
<p>Much research has emphasised the importance of incorporating wildlife crossing-structures in the design of road networks to facilitate connectivity of wildlife crossings in road-fragmented landscapes. Although camera traps have been effective in monitoring wildlife crossing structures, limited studies explore camera trap protocol to monitor wildlife use of crossing structures, particularly in Africa. Our study reviewed and assessed camera trap peer-reviewed research that monitored the use of crossing-structures by wildlife to navigate landscapes fragmented by roads. We found 70 camera trap peer-reviewed publications from 2001 to 2022 that monitored wildlife use of crossing-structures in landscapes intersected by roads, and these were from 22 countries and six continents. The included peer-reviewed studies varied significantly globally, with geographical trends indicating that most studies were conducted in North America. However, the methods used varied considerably between studies, especially in terms of camera trap placement protocol (placement height of camera trap, survey length, and camera multi-shot settings). This showed that camera trap usage for monitoring animal use of crossing structures is still an emerging area of research, and there is a potential for developing a standardised protocol for each type of crossing structure design and size. Future camera trap studies exploring wildlife use of crossing-structures should consider monitoring existing crossing structures (culverts, bridges, and tunnels) as this provides a less costly method of restoring landscape connectivity. We recommend that further research develop a standardised camera trap protocol for monitoring wildlife using crossing-structures to reduce the threats to biodiversity.</p>
Managing Human-Wildlife Interactions: Ecological and Financial Assessment of Elk Feedground Closure in Teton County
<p>Teton County in Western Wyoming is home to large working landscapes, a national park, and the nation's largest elk herd, the Jackson herd. It is also one of the few places in the Western United States that still operates elk feedgrounds, where the artificial feeding of these large mammals has resulted in high density populations over small areas, leading to increased disease transmission and prevalence. A disease of primary concern is brucellosis (<em>Brucella abortus</em>) which can be transmitted from elk to cattle and result in financial burdens for ranchers through quarantine, depopulation, reduced milk production, or calf abortions. This project aimed to better understand the complex social and ecological dynamics of elk feedgrounds in order to assess the feasibility of implementing financial tools that would mitigate the effects of disease transmission and wildlife presence risks of a simulated feedground closure. Our goal is to help improve human-wildlife coexistence on Wyoming's private and public lands. To accomplish this, we completed a Public Comment Sentiment Analysis, a Jackson Herd Habitat Connectivity Model, a Brucellosis Transmission Risk Model, and an Analysis of Financial Repercussions of Feedground Closure. These methods resulted in the assessment of two financial tools, a brucellosis compensation fund and an elk rent program, which we recommend to be implemented in Teton County. This project will serve to better inform the Property and Environment Research Center on potential methods for improving human-wildlife interactions and coexistence in Teton County through the understanding of where elk move on private lands, transmission of disease from elk to cattle, and the impacts that the cessation of feeding could cause on subsequent stakeholders, specifically the financial implications for ranchers.</p>
Managing Human-Wildlife Interactions: Ecological and Financial Assessment of Elk Feedground Closure in Teton County
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Data from: Detecting elusive aspects of wildlife ecology using drones: new insights on the mating dynamics and operational sex ratios of sea turtles
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A systematic review of global road ecology camera trap studies that monitored animals’ use of wildlife crossings in road-fragmented landscapes
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Data from: The ecology of wildlife disease surveillance: demographic and prevalence fluctuations undermine surveillance
Wildlife disease surveillance is the first line of defence against infectious disease. Fluctuations in host populations and disease prevalence are a known feature of wildlife disease systems. However, the impact of such heterogeneities on the performance of surveillance is currently poorly understood. We present the first systematic exploration of the effects of fluctuations' prevalence and host population size on the efficacy of wildlife disease surveillance systems. In this study, efficacy is measured in terms of ability to estimate long-term prevalence and detect disease risk. Our results suggest that for many wildlife disease systems, fluctuations in population size and disease lead to bias in surveillance-based estimates of prevalence and overconfidence in assessments of both the precision of prevalence estimates and the power to detect disease. Neglecting such ecological effects may lead to poorly designed surveillance and ultimately to incorrect assessments of the risks posed by disease in wildlife. This will be most problematic in systems where prevalence fluctuations are large and disease fade-outs occur. Such fluctuations are determined by the interaction of demography and disease dynamics. Although particularly likely in highly fluctuating populations typical of fecund short-lived hosts, such fluctuations cannot be ruled out in more stable populations of longer-lived hosts. Synthesis and applications. Fluctuations in population size and disease prevalence should be considered in the design and implementation of wildlife disease surveillance, and the framework presented here provides a template for conducting suitable power calculations. Ultimately, understanding the impact of fluctuations in demographic and epidemiological processes will enable improvements to wildlife disease surveillance systems leading to better characterization of, and protection against endemic, emerging and re-emerging disease threats.
Congruence of local ecological knowledge (LEK)-based methods and line-transect surveys in estimating wildlife abundance in Amazonian forests
<p>1) Effective estimation of wildlife population abundance is an important component of population monitoring, and ultimately essential for the development of conservation actions. Diurnal line transect surveys are one of the most applied methods for abundance estimations. Local ecological knowledge (LEK) is empirically acquired through the observation of ecological processes by local people. LEK-based methods have only been recognized as valid scientific methods for surveying fauna abundance in the last three decades. However, the agreement between both methods has not been extensively analysed.</p> <p>2) We compared concomitant abundance data for 91 wild species (mammals, birds and tortoises) from diurnal line transects (9,221 km of trails) and a LEK-based method (291 structured interviews) at 18 sites in Central and Western Amazonia. We used biological and socioecological factors to assess the agreements and divergences between abundance indices obtained from both methods.</p> <p>3) We found a significant agreement of population abundance indices for diurnal and game species. This relationship was also positive regardless of species sociality (solitary or social), body size and locomotion mode (terrestrial and arboreal); and of sampled forest type (upland and flooded forests). Conversely, we did not find significant abundance covariances for nocturnal and non-game species. Despite the general agreement between methods, line transects were not effective at surveying many species occurring in the area, with 40.2% and 39.8% of all species being rarely and never detected in at least one of the survey sites. On the other hand, these species were widely reported by local informants to occur at intermediate to high abundances.</p> <p>4) Although LEK-based methods have been long neglected by ecologists, our comparative study demonstrated their effectiveness for estimating vertebrate abundance of a wide diversity of taxa and forest environments. This can be used simultaneously with line transects surveys to calibrate abundance estimates and record species that are rarely sighted during surveys on foot, but that are often observed by local people during their daily extractive activities. Thus, the combination of local and scientific knowledge is a potential tool to improve our knowledge of tropical forest species and foster the development of effective strategies to meet biodiversity conservation goals. --</p>
Supplementary material 1 from: Zemanova MA (2019) Poor implementation of non-invasive sampling in wildlife genetics studies. Rethinking Ecology 4: 119-132. https://doi.org/10.3897/rethinkingecology.4.32751
: Data type: reference data
Congruence of local ecological knowledge (LEK)-based methods and line-transect surveys in estimating wildlife abundance in Amazonian forests
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The application of community ecology theory to co-infections in wildlife hosts
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Data from: The ecology of wildlife disease surveillance: demographic and prevalence fluctuations undermine surveillance
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Allen Brain Atlas
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DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
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International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.