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74 results for “Human ecology”
Human auditory ecology : Extending hearing research to the perception of natural soundscapes by humans in rapidly-changing environments
<p>The audiomaterial corresponding to boreal, tropical and temperate forests, desert, savannah, sub-alpine meadow, and the construction site in New York is copyrighted (license from Wild Sanctuary) and cannot be used without explicit agreement of Bernie Krause. Additional audiomaterial (urban park and street traffic in Paris, France; fast street traffic in Marseille, France; English and French speech material) may only be used with the explicit agreement of the following authors: Jérôme Sueur and Sylvain Haupert (Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, France); Sabine Meunier (LMA/CNRS in Marseille, France); Franck Ramus (CNRS in Paris, France) (see Figure legends).</p>
Changes in the users of the social-ecological system around a reciprocal human-dolphin relationship
<p>This package contains the deidentified data and R code to replicate the quantitative analyses and figures of the scientific article accepted for publication at People & Nature:</p> <p><span>Cantor M</span><strong><span>,</span></strong><span> Santos-Silva B, Daura-Jorge FG, Machado AMS, Peterson D, da Rosa DX, Simões-Lopes PC, Valle-Pereira JVS, Zank S, Hanazaki N. Accepted. Changes in the users of the social-ecological system around a reciprocal human-dolphin relationship. People & Nature.</span> </p> <p> </p> <p><span>Abstract</span></p> <p>1. In contrast to many contemporary negative human-nature relationships, Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities have stewarded nature through cultural practices that include reciprocal contributions for both humans and nature. A rare example is the century-old artisanal fishery in which net-casting fishers and wild dolphins benefit by working together, but little is known about the persistence of the social-ecological system formed around this cultural practice.</p> <p>2. Here, we frame the human-dolphin cooperative fishery in southern Brazil as a social-ecological system based on secondary data from the scientific and grey literature. To investigate the dynamics of this system, we survey the local and traditional ecological knowledge and examine potential changes in its main component—the artisanal fishers—over time and space.</p> <p>3. Over 16 years, we conducted four interview campaigns with 188 fishers in fishing sites that are more open (accessible) or closed (restricted) to external influence. We investigated their experience, engagement, and economic dependence on dolphin-assisted fishing, as well as the learning processes and transmission of the traditional knowledge required to cooperate with dolphins.</p> <p>4. Our qualitative data suggest that fishers using accessible and restricted fishing sites have equivalent fishing experience, but those in more restrictive sites tend to be more economically dependent on dolphins, relying on them for fishing year-round. The traditional knowledge on how to cooperate with dolphins is mostly acquired via social learning, with a tendency for vertical learning to be frequent among fishers using sites more restrictive for outsiders. Experience, economic dependence, and reliance on vertical learning seem to decrease recently, especially in the accessible site. Our quantitative analyses, however, suggest that some of these fluctuations were not significant.</p> <p>5. Our study outlines the key components of this social-ecological system and identifies changes in the attributes of a main component, the users. These changes, when coupled with changes on other components such as governance and resource units (fish and dolphins), can have implications for the persistence of this cultural practice and the livelihoods of Local Communities. We suggest that continuous monitoring of this system can help to safeguard the reciprocal contributions of this human-nature relationship in years to come.</p>
Complete numerical solutions for "Inference of ecological and social drivers of human brain-size evolution" by Mauricio González-Forero and Andy Gardner
<p>This zip file contains the complete numerical solutions across the parameter sweep over the P parameters for the six cases considered.</p> <p>/1RatioForm/ -> solutions for power competence.<br> /2DiffForm/ -> solutions for exponential competence.</p> <p>/1RatioForm/1BenchmarkFromSimpleInitialGuess -> solution for the step 1 of initialization (section 5 of the SI).<br> /1RatioForm/2Benchmark/ -> solution for the step 2 of the initialization (section 5 of the SI).<br> /1RatioForm/3AdditiveCoop/ -> solutions across the P parameter combinations for additive cooperation.<br> /1RatioForm/4MultCoop/ -> solutions across the P parameter combinations for multiplicative cooperation.<br> /1RatioForm/5SubMultCoop/ -> solutions across the P parameter combinations for submultiplicative cooperation.</p> <p>The contents of /2DiffForm/ are analogous.</p> <p>The P vector is written in these files in the order (etas,etac,etaC,etag), where<br> etas -> P1<br> etac -> P3<br> etaC -> P2<br> etag -> P4</p> <p>The files 1runNotesACMC.pdf and 2runNotesSC.pdf contain the tree structure of the parameter sweep, specifying which parameter combination was used as the resident and which combinations converged to an uninvadable strategy (those with a checkmark).</p> <p>The file 3runNotesMaternalCareOptimization.pdf contains the 10 parameter combinations that yielded the best adult fit, which then were subject to variation in the parameter phi to find the combination that yielded the best ontogenetic fit.</p> <p>The file 4runNotesDuplicates.pdf gives the parameter combinations that were not run because they are equivalent to other parameter combinations.</p> <p>Running [T,N1,run,Tshort,N1short,runShort]=etaCombinations in Matlab and typing run.seed{i}.parallel{:} gives the "next" parameter combinations from parameter combination i (where i is a number 1,2,...) for PC-AC, EC-MC, PC-SC, and EC-SC. The meaning of "next" is explained in step 4 of the parameter sweep (section 5 of the SI). Typing runShort.seed{i}.parallel{:} gives the "next" parameter combinations from parameter combination i for PC-MC and EC-AC.</p> <p>The terminal folders contain the solutions and have the following files:<br> brainNashDeep.m -> the master file launching the iteration of best responses.<br> brainMainDeep.m -> the file launching one iteration solving the optimal control problem to find best response.<br> brainMainTestRunDeep.m -> runs a test to check if there are infeasibility warnings.<br> brainContinuous.m -> specifies the dynamic constraints.<br> brainEndpoint.m -> specifies the terminal constraints.<br> parameters.m -> specifies the parameter values and rescales them to rescale units as specified in section 5 of the SI.<br> getSolution.m -> extracts solution.<br> plots.m -> plots solutions over best response iterations.<br> brainPlot.m -> plots solution of a given best response iteration.<br> guessDeep.mat -> initial guess and resident used.<br> solutionNashDeep.mat -> solutions over best response iterations.<br> solutionDeep.mat -> solution of last best response iteration.</p> <p> </p>
Implementing social network analysis to understand the socio-ecology of wildlife co-occurrence and joint interactions with humans in anthropogenic environments
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The unique spatial ecology of human hunters
<p>Human hunters are described as 'superpredators' with a unique ecology. Chronic Wasting Disease among cervids and African swine fever among wild boar are emerging wildlife diseases in Europe with huge economic and cultural repercussions. Understanding hunter movements at broad scales has implications for how to control their spread. Here we show, based on the analysis of the settlement patterns and movements of reindeer (n = 9,685), red deer (n = 47,845), moose (n = 60,365), and roe deer (n = 42,530) hunters from across Norway (2001-2017), that hunter density was more closely linked to human density than prey density, that hunters were largely migratory, aggregated with increasing regional prey densities and often used dogs. Hunter movements extended across Europe and to other continents. Our results provide extensive evidence that the broad-scale movements and residency patterns of post-industrial hunters relative to their prey differ from those of large carnivores.</p>
Data from: Are drivers of microbial diatom distributions context dependent in human impacted and pristine environments? in Ecological Applicatios (2019)
<p>Species occurrence (0/1) and environmental data from research article "Are drivers of microbial diatom distributions context dependent in human impacted and pristine environments?" in Ecological Applications (2019). </p> <p>Please see more details in the readme-file and the original article. </p>
Data from: An unintended ecological benefit from human intervention: The enhancement of carbon storage in seagrass meadows
<p>Human interventions have had unintended consequences for the diverse functions of various ecosystems. Hydrological interventions have the potential to alter vegetated habitats in coastal nearshore ecosystems, but little is known about the impacts on organic carbon (C<sub>org</sub> ) sequestration, which plays an important role in climate change mitigation.</p> <p>We examined the effects of past human interventions through artificial inlet opening in a lagoonal seagrass meadow. The sediment profiles of geological and biogeochemical characteristics were measured to obtain the historical changes in the lagoon environment and C<sub>org</sub> accumulation rates.</p> <p>Isotopic and elemental signatures and diatom assemblages showed that the interventions increased the duration of seawater exchanges and the extent of the seagrass meadow. C<sub>org</sub> accumulation rates increased more than 1.9-fold after the intervention, resulting in additional C<sub>org</sub> storage in the seagrass meadow during last 64 years.</p> <p><i>Synthesis and applications</i>. Artificial opening of tidal inlet can potentially provide unintended ecological benefits, such as increased carbon sequestration in seagrass meadows. Hydrological interventions could be undertaken intentionally as a potential active intervention to sequester carbon, as well as control flood risk and provide other benefits to people in estuarine systems. Our results illustrate that physical factors such as improving salinity conditions and mineral particle supply have an impact on the feasibility of hydrological interventions for enhancing carbon sequestration. We propose that biogeochemical-physical coupled approach will help stakeholders to evaluate the ecological and social risks and synergies of implementing hydrological interventions.</p>
Integrating socio-ecological suitability with human-wildlife conflict risk: Case study for translocation of a large ungulate
<p>1. Translocations are essential for reestablishing wildlife populations. As they sometimes fail, it is critical to assess factors that influence their success pre-translocation.</p> <p>2. Socio-ecological suitability models (SESMs) integrate social acceptance and ecological suitability to enable identification of areas where wildlife populations will expand, which makes it likely that SESMs will also be useful for predicting translocation success.</p> <p>3. To inform site-selection for potential elk (Cervus canadensis) reintroduction to northeastern Minnesota, USA, we developed broad-scale maps of social acceptance from surveys of local residents and landowners, animal use equivalence (AUE) from forage measured in the field, and empirical conflict risk from geospatial data. Resulting SESMs integrated social acceptance favorability scores, AUE, and conflict risk, and weighted SESMs showed the relative influences of acceptance and conflict.</p> <p>4. Social acceptance was positive for local residents and landowners (mean ≥ 5.4; scale of 1 to 7). AUE (scaled to an elk home range) ranged between 1 and 9 elk/16 km2 during winter, and from 14 to 83 elk/16 km2 during summer. Human-elk conflict risk was low (mean ≤ 0.10; scaled 0 to 1), increasing from north to south. Geographical distributions differed for social acceptance, AUE, and conflict risk, and weighted SESMs revealed unsuitable areas that were otherwise obscured.</p> <p>5. <em>Synthesis and applications</em>. Integrating human-wildlife conflict risk into SESMs shows where social acceptance of translocated species is likely to erode, even where viewed favorably pre-translocation, to inform translocation planning by highlighting interactions between key factors. Such integrated models supplement existing reintroduction biology frameworks by supporting decision-making and knowledge development. In northeastern Minnesota, natural resource managers who are considering elk reintroductions are using SESMs reported here to identify where human-elk conflict is likely to result in an isolated elk population and where addressing concerns for area residents about conflict risk is essential.</p>
Exploring changes in ecosystem service values in strongly human-impacted, contrasting agro-ecological environments
<p>Evaluating the impacts of land-use/land-cover (LULC) changes on ecosystem service values (ESVs) is essential for sustainable use and management of ecosystems. In this study, we evaluated the impact of LULC changes on ESVs over the period 1982–2016/17 in contrasting, strongly human-impacted agro-ecological environments: Guder (highland), Aba Gerima (midland), and Debatie (lowland) watersheds of the Upper Blue Nile basin, Ethiopia. During the study period, the continuous expansion of cultivated land at the expense of natural vegetation (bushland, forest, and grazing land) severely reduced the total ESV by about US$58 thousand (35%) in Aba Gerima and US$31 thousand (29%) in Debatie watersheds. In contrast, the unprecedented expansion of plantations, mainly through the planting of Acacia decurrens, helped the total ESV rebound by about US$71 thousand (54%) in Guder watershed after 2006, after it had decreased by about US$61 thousand (32%) between 1982 and 2006. The reduction in natural forest area was the major contributor to the loss of total ESV in the study watersheds, ranging from a reduction of US$31 thousand (63%) in Debatie to US$96.9 thousand (70%) in Guder between 1982 and 2016/17. On an area-specific basis, LULC changes reduced the average ESV from US$560 ha–1 yr–1 (1982) in Guder to US$306 ha–1 yr–1 (2017) in Debatie watersheds. Specific ESVs such as provisioning (mainly as food production) and regulating services (mainly as erosion control and climate regulation) accounted for most of the total ESVs estimated for the study watersheds. In most cases the total and specific ESVs of the watersheds were negatively associated with the population growth, which in turn was positively associated with the expansion of cultivated land over the study period. In Guder watershed, however, ESVs were positively associated with population growth, especially after 2012. This resulted primarily from the conversion of cultivated land to plantations (predominantly with nitrogen-fixing Acacia decurrens trees) because of the farmers' growing desire to rehabilitate degraded cultivated land while simultaneously generating income through the sale of charcoal from this fast-growing tree. Our results suggest, therefore, that future policy measures and directions should focus on improving vegetation cover through planting multipurpose trees such as Acacia decurrens to prevent future loss of ESV in the midland and lowland regions of the Upper Blue Nile basin and beyond.</p>
Severe environmental conditions create severe conflicts? A novel ecological pathway to extreme coyote attacks on humans
<p>1) Identifying the circumstances and causes of carnivore attacks on humans is important for prevention of future incidents as well as employing effective wildlife management strategies. Cape Breton Highlands National Park (CBHNP) in Nova Scotia has experienced multiple attacks by coyotes (Canis latrans) on humans, including a fatal attack on an adult in 2009.</p> <p>2) Here we use a combination of data on space use and diet collected from 2011–2013 to reveal that limited resources and a reliance on a large ungulate (moose, Alces americanus) as the mechanism leading to aggression by coyotes in CBHNP.</p> <p>3) Resident coyotes exhibited large home range sizes (mean=77.5 km2) indicative of limited resources and spatiotemporal avoidance of human activity. Carbon (d13C) and nitrogen (d15N) isotope values of sub-sampled coyote whiskers (n=32), which provide a longitudinal record of diet over the months before collection, revealed little intra- and inter-individual variation with nearly all individuals specializing on moose, a pattern that agrees with indices of natural resource availability. Specifically, stable isotope mixing models show that moose was the most important prey for most coyotes (25/32), representing between 41% and 78% of dietary inputs. Only four coyotes exhibited use of anthropogenic resources (food), and only one of seven coyotes involved in attacks on people had been consuming human foods before the attacks.</p> <p>4) Synthesis and Applications: We have described a unique ecological system in which a generalist carnivore has expanded its niche to specialize on a large prey species, with the unfortunate consequence of also expanding pathways to conflicts with people. Our results suggest extreme unprovoked predatory attacks by coyotes on people are likely to be quite rare and associated with unique ecological characteristics. Extreme management actions such as bounties are unnecessary, but managers may need to employ hazing or lethal removal earlier in the conflict process than under normal circumstances. Also, users of these areas should be made aware of the risks coyotes pose and encouraged to take precautions. </p>
Detecting ecological traps in human-altered landscapes: A case study of the thick-billed longspur nesting in croplands
<p>Conversion of the North American prairies to cropland remains a prominent threat to grassland bird populations. Yet, a few species nest in these vastly modified systems. The thick-billed longspur (<em>Rhynchophanes mccownii</em>) is an obligate grassland bird whose populations have declined 4% annually during the past 50 years. Thick-billed longspurs historically nested in recently disturbed or sparsely vegetated patches within native mixed-grass prairie, but observations of longspurs in spring cereal and pulse crop fields during the breeding season in northeastern Montana, USA suggest such fields also provide cues for habitat selection. Maladaptive selection for poor-quality habitat may contribute to ongoing declines in longspur populations, but information on thick-billed longspur breeding ecology in crop fields is lacking. We hypothesized that these crop fields may function as ecological traps; specifically, we expected that crop fields may provide cues for territory selection, but frequent human disturbance and increased exposure to weather and predators would have negative consequences for reproduction. To address this hypothesis, we compared measures of habitat selection (settlement patterns and trends in abundance) and productivity (nest density, nest survival, and number of young fledged) between crop fields and native grassland sites during 2020–21. Across both years, settlement patterns were similar between site types and occupancy ranged from 0.52 ± 0.17SE to 0.99 ± 0.01 on April 7 and 30, respectively. Early season abundance differed by year, and changes in abundance during the breeding season appeared to be associated with precipitation-driven vegetation conditions rather than habitat type. While an index of nest density was lower in crop than native sites, the number of young fledged per successful nest (2.9 ± 0.18SE) and nest survival (0.24 ± 0.03 SE; n=222 nests) were similar for crop and native sites. Collectively, the data did not support our ecological trap hypothesis: longspurs did not exhibit a clear preference for crop sites and reproductive output was not significantly reduced. Our results indicate that croplands may provide alternative breeding habitat within a human-dominated landscape.</p>
Rain, recreation, and risk: Human activity and ecological disturbance create seasonal risk landscapes for the prey of an ambush predator
<p>Predation risk and prey responses exhibit fluctuations in space and time. Seasonal ecological disturbances can alter landscape structure and permeability to influence predator activity and efficacy, creating predictable patterns of risk for prey (seasonal risk landscapes). This may create corresponding seasonal shifts in antipredator behavior, mediated by species ecology and trade-offs between risk and resources. Yet, how human recreation interacts with seasonal risk landscapes and antipredator behavior remains understudied.</p> <p><strong>Goals</strong> – In South Florida, we investigated the impact of a seasonal ecological disturbance, specifically flooding, which is inversely related to human activity, on interactions between Florida panthers (<em>Puma concolor coryi</em>) and white-tailed deer (<em>Odocoileus</em> <em>virginianus</em>). We hypothesized that human activity and ecological disturbances would interact with panther-deer ecology, resulting in the emergence of two distinct seasonal landscapes of predation risk and the corresponding antipredator response. We conducted camera trap surveys across southwestern Florida to collect detection data on humans, panthers, and deer. We analyzed the influence of human site use and flooding on deer and panther detection probability, co-occurrence, and diel activity during the flooded and dry seasons. Flooding led to decreased panther detections and increased deer detections, resulting in reduced deer-panther co-occurrence during the flooded season. Panthers exhibited increased nocturnality and reduced diel activity overlap with deer in areas with higher human activity. Supporting our hypothesis, panthers' avoidance of human recreation and flooding created distinct risk schedules for deer, driving their antipredator behavior. Deer utilized flooded areas to spatially offset predation risk during the flooded season while increasing diurnal activity in response to human recreation during the dry season.</p> <p><strong>Significance to the field </strong>– We highlight the importance of understanding how competing risks and ecological disturbances influence predator and prey behavior, leading to the generation of seasonal risk landscapes and antipredator responses. We emphasize the role of cyclical ecological disturbances in shaping dynamic predator-prey interactions. Furthermore, we highlight how human recreation may function as a 'temporal human shield,' altering seasonal risk landscapes and antipredator responses to reduce encounter rates between predators and prey. </p>
Data from: Human activities modulate reciprocal effects of a subterranean ecological engineer rodent, Tachyoryctes macrocephalus, on Afroalpine vegetation cover
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span>Human activities, directly and indirectly, impact ecological engineering activities of subterranean rodents. As engineering activities of burrowing rodents are affected by, and reciprocally affect vegetation cover via feeding, burrowing and mound building, human influence such as settlements and livestock grazing, could have cascading effects on biodiversity and ecosystem processes such as bioturbation. However, there is limited understanding of the relationship between human activities and burrowing rodents. The aim of this study was therefore to understand how human activities influence the ecological engineering activity of the giant root-rat (<em>Tachyoryctes macrocephalus</em>), a subterranean rodent species endemic to the Afroalpine ecosystem of the Bale Mountains of Ethiopia. We collected data on human impact, burrowing activity and vegetation during February and March of 2021. Using path analysis, we tested (1) direct effects of human settlement on the patterns of livestock grazing intensity, (2) direct and indirect impacts of humans and livestock grazing intensity on the root-rat burrow density, and (3) whether human settlement and livestock grazing influence the effects of giant root-rat burrow density on vegetation and <em>vice versa</em>. We found lower levels of livestock grazing intensity further from human settlement than in its proximity. We also found a significantly increased giant root-rat burrow density with increasing livestock grazing intensity. Seasonal settlement and livestock grazing intensity had an indirect negative and positive effect on giant root-rat burrow density, respectively, both via vegetation cover. Analysing the reciprocal effects of giant root-rat on vegetation, we found a significantly decreased vegetation cover with increasing density of giant root-rat burrows, and indirectly with increasing livestock grazing intensity via giant root-rat burrow density. Our results demonstrate that giant root-rats play a synanthropic engineering role that affects vegetation structure and ecosystem processes. </span></p>
The unique spatial ecology of human hunters
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Data from: An unintended ecological benefit from human intervention: The enhancement of carbon storage in seagrass meadows
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Integrating socio-ecological suitability with human-wildlife conflict risk: Case study for translocation of a large ungulate
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Ecological drivers of garden dormouse (Eliomys quercinus) occupancy in a human modified landscape in Germany
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Detecting ecological traps in human-altered landscapes: A case study of the thick-billed longspur nesting in croplands
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Data from: Human activities modulate reciprocal effects of a subterranean ecological engineer rodent, Tachyoryctes macrocephalus, on Afroalpine vegetation cover
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Severe environmental conditions create severe conflicts? A novel ecological pathway to extreme coyote attacks on humans
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Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
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.