Abstracts available here - Society for Conservation Biology

25th International Congress for Conservation Biology • Auckland, New Zealand • 5-9 December 2011
identified to date within 23 Pacific Island Countries, Territories and States
(PICTS), but the process is hampered by data availability in the region.
Preliminary analysis of overlap with Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs)
identified for other taxonomic groups using the same criteria suggests that
marine IBAs encompass significant populations of other taxa in addition to
internationally significant bird populations. Currently only 2% of the area
within marine IBAs in the tropical Pacific lies inside Marine Protected Area
(MPA) boundaries. Challenges for the next phase of this programme are
to plug existing information gaps to improve coverage of the marine IBA
network, and to increase the level of national and international protection
that these priority sites receive.
2011-12-06 15:30 Advances in Species Recognition and Small Animal
Monitoring
Blackie, H.M.*, Centre of Wildlife Management and Conservation,
Lincoln University; Woodhead, I. , Lincoln Ventures Limited; Diegel,
O. , Creative Industries Research Institute, Auckland University of
Technology; MacMorran, D., Connovation Ltd; Eason, C. , Centre
of Wildlife Management and Conservation and Connovation Ltd;
Monitoring animal populations is an important aspect of wildlife
management and conservation. Species monitoring provides a vital source
of information on the population status of species of conservation concern,
and plays a significant role in determining conservation action priorities.
Furthermore, when attempting eradication of pest species determining
whether any targeted individuals remain is a critical factor, as terminating
control programmes too early means failure to eradicate, whilst continuing
for too long adds considerable expense. In situations such as these, a reliable
and efficient monitoring technique which can distinguish between different
species is invaluable. However, conventional methods of monitoring small
animal populations are labour intensive, costly, have limited operational
timeframes, require a high level of user expertise and are restricted in terms
of their scientific robustness. This presentation describes a newly developed
device which uses a specially designed electronic surface to examine animal
footprint analysis, shape and weight characteristics to distinguish between
species and monitor animal abundance over long timeframes. This device
provides a new, improved monitoring technique which is not only more
efficient but also significantly more cost-effective. The type of information
which these devices can provide will be outlined, as well as their suitability
for different species types and their application (with examples) for wildlife
management or control purposes.
2011-12-06 14:30 Lessons from the Mississippi River Twin Cities
Landbird Monitoring Program: Using citizen scientists to further
migration research in an urban flyway.
Blair, RB*, University of Minnesota; Homayoun, TZ, University of
Minnesota;
The Mississippi River Twin Cities Important Bird Area (IBA) covers over
14,000 ha of residential, commercial, and open space along a 50 km
urban stretch of the Mississippi River in Minnesota. It is an IBA based on
three criteria: habitat hosting waterfowl during migration and waterbirds
during breeding; habitat for species of conservation concern; and site with
research value and diversity in an urban area. While state agencies regularly
surveyed the waterfowl populations in the IBA, little was known about the
landbirds that used the flyway. In fact, as of 2005, most reserves in the
IBA did not have species lists. Consequently, we created the Mississippi
River Twin Cities Landbird Monitoring Program as a citizen-science
project to engage local birders. The main goals of the project were to (1)
inventory landbirds that use the area, (2) determine seasonal patterns of
occupancy, (3) estimate landbird abundance, and (4) evaluate long-term
trends. Between 2007 and 2010, citizen scientists surveyed during both the
spring migration and breeding seasons at eight sites in the IBA. From their
data, we found that species richness, diversity, evenness, and native migrant
landbird densities responded negatively to increased impervious cover.
Additionally, the response in community measures was more pronounced
during the breeding season than during migration, suggesting that sites
non-optimal breeding habitat should not be overlooked as vital migratory
stopover habitat.
2011-12-09 12:15 Stewardship Credit Program Pilot—A new
Grassbanking tool for Canada
Blouin, D.*, Nature Conservancy of Canada;
The Nature Conservancy of Canada’s Stewardship Credit Program is
being piloted on the Foothills Fescue grasslands of southern Canada to
maintain Natural Capital and create a new conservation tool for use on
the agricultural landscapes of Canada. Grassbanking is a recent approach
to landscape-scale conservation whereby land is leased to livestock ranchers
at a reduced rate in exchange for ranchers completing conservation projects
on their private lands. The agreement enables ranchers to reduce their
production costs, increase the quality of their beef with healthy forage
and rest their private land to increase forage production in the long-term.
This pilot project is being conducted on a 1,659 ha ranch in southern
Alberta owned by the Nature Conservancy of Canada and partners. Five
neighbouring cattle ranchers have been involved in the development of
the program and have access to graze the pilot property. In return, credits
are assigned to them on an annual basis for maintaining the range and
riparian health on their private property and implementing stewardship
tools to further increase that health. Credits are assigned to the ranchers
following a specific methodology on an annual basis for maintaining their
Natural Capital (1credit =$1). Upon the completion of the pilot program
the Nature Conservancy of Canada will positively influence 3,640 ha of
Foothills Fescue grassland and provide the background to develop and
implement a new conservation tool for Canada.
2011-12-06 17:15 Measuring habitat loss for conservation research: A
multi-scale comparison of global land cover products and a framework
for the future
Bogich, TLB*, Princeton University; Zambrana-Torrelio, C,
EcoHealth Alliance; Ramunkutty, N., McGill University; Balmford,
AP, Cambridge University;
The human population is growing at an unprecedented rate, and with
that growth comes continued change in land use to suit human needs –
the conversion of forests to agricultural fields and urban development,
for example. As conservation biologists and ecologists, we must quantify
this global loss of habitat in order to accurately assess extinction risk. The
development of global land cover maps is advancing and the use of these
maps in conservation and ecological research is also growing, however, it
is not always clear which data set to employ given the analysis scale and
study question at hand. We follow the IUCN Ecosystem Red List criteria
to assess the decline in distribution of terrestrial habitats, focusing on the
specific issue of how the different data sets compare when measuring the
proportion of land converted from natural habitats to human land uses.
We found significant, and non-uniform disagreement in the classification
of habitat as converted or not converted between the maps and across
scales. There is a need for biologically relevant land cover maps at the global
scale. While global land cover products exist, we found that they do not
necessarily agree on the variation being captured, making the decision
of which map to implement nontrivial. Based on our assessment of the
construction, features, and intent of each of the five data sets, we present
recommendations for the selection of a global land cover data set when
assessing threatened ecosystems.
2011-12-07 15:00 Ecological meltdown on an oceanic island:
Management of the invasive yellow crazy ant Anoplolepis gracilipes on
Christmas Island
Boland, C., Parks Australia; Andersen, A.*, CSIRO Ecosystem
Sciences;
The yellow crazy ant has infested thousands of hectares of rainforest habitat
on Australia’s Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, with disastrous
ecological consequences. Crazy ant infestation has led directly to the
death of millions of iconic red land crabs and indirectly to significant tree
mortality, with cascading effects on ecosystem structure and function. We
will provide an overview of a 10-year management programme aimed at
controlling crazy ant infestation. Control efforts have featured two highly
successful aerial baiting campaigns that decimated crazy ant populations
with minimal non-target impacts. The management programme
incorporates extensive research and monitoring, including regular islandwide
surveys at nearly 900 fixed waypoints, as well as studies of non-target
impacts and the relative efficacy of different baits. Ongoing research is
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