Abstracts available here - Society for Conservation Biology

25th International Congress for Conservation Biology • Auckland, New Zealand • 5-9 December 2011
legitimacy, and build capacity. Tres Palmas Marine Reserve (TPMR) in
western Puerto Rico (PR) is a 204-acre no-take reserve recently established
to protect breeding populations of threatened Elkhorn coral (Acropora
palmata), whose boundaries were drawn through stakeholder input. The
TPMR Management Plan explicitly includes provisions for community
participation in the implementation of its goals and objectives. However,
our experience has demonstrated that despite concerted efforts to engage the
local population in decision-making and conservation activities, community
participation has proved elusive since designation. This highlights the need
to identify preconditions necessary for active community participation. We
suggest several factors, including institutional, financial and interculturalcommunication
as key.
2011-12-08 18:30 Absence of inbreeding in an isolated Moose (Alces
alces) population over a 50-year period
Hayes, KD*, Central Michigan University; Sattler, RA, Central
Michigan University; Vucetich, JA, Central Michigan University;
Swanson, BJ, Michigan Technological University;
Compared to large populations, small isolated populations experience
greater loss of genetic variation and increased inbreeding due to reduced
interpopulation dispersal, often with detrimental effects. The moose
population on Isle Royale, an island located 24 km off the southern coast
of Ontario, Canada, likely has existed as an isolated population since
moose colonized it in the early 1900s. The moose have also undergone 3
demographic bottlenecks in the last 50 years. We used genetic analysis of
197 moose samples at 9 microsatellite loci to investigate inbreeding on the
island from 1960-2005. We found very low levels of inbreeding (Fis=-0.07-
0.04) and no significant increase (P=0.75) over that time period. Relatedness
never differed from 0 and did not increase over time. The lack of inbreeding
we observed suggests that the Isle Royale moose population is actively
avoiding inbreeding or is experiencing dispersal from mainland populations.
To study the immigration of moose to the island, the control region of the
mtDNA was sequenced for 38 moose spanning the 1960 to 2005 dataset.
The likely source population of the Isle Royale moose contains 5 haplotypes.
We identified only 1 haplotype which has a frequency of 0.39 in the putative
source population. The lack of multiple haplotypes suggests that there is no
immigration to the island. Our results suggest that inbreeding avoidance is
occurring and inbreeding is not necessarily a byproduct of a small, isolated
population.
2011-12-09 11:18 Interventions for Human-elephant Conflict
Mitigation: their Use and Effectiveness in Assam, India
Hazarika, N*, EcoSystems-India, Guwahati 781028, Assam, India;
Zimmermann, A, Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, University of
Oxford, Tubney, Abingdon, OX13 5QL; Wilson, S, North of England
Zoological Society, Chester Zoo, Chester, CH2 1LH, UK.; Davies, TE,
St Andrews, Fife KY16 9AJ, Scotland, UK;
Crop raiding by elephants constitutes a major component of humanelephant
conflict, causing loss of livelihood and retaliation against elephants
in Assam, India. To mitigate this conflict, the Assam Haathi Project has
developed low cost intervention methods to enable communities to protect
their property and crops. These interventions include early-warning
methods (e.g. trip wires); deterrents (chilli, spotlights), and barriers (solar
power fencing). The project encourages community ownership and has
found communities willing to try and invest in innovative intervention
methods. The efficacy of interventions adopted by communities was assessed
based on a three-year dataset from project sites. This has revealed that
stand-alone interventions such as spotlights, chili fences, or electric fences
were more effective in preventing crop and property damage by elephants.
However, when used in combination with human noise their efficacy was
compromised. This assessment has led the project to discourage use of noise
when power fences, chilli fences and spotlights are deployed. The study has
highlighted that periodic evaluation of usefulness of interventions can help
to enhance their effectiveness.
2011-12-07 12:00 Participation and Payments: Evaluating the effect
of two conservation programs aimed at alleviating lion killing in
Maasailand, Kenya
Hazzah, L*, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Dorenry, S, University
of Wisconsin-Madison; Frank, L, University of California-Berkeley;
African lion (Panthera leo) populations are in decline throughout most
of Africa, but the problem is particularly acute in southern Kenya, where
Maasai people are spearing and poisoning lions at a rate that will ensure
near term local extinction. Compensation payments for livestock lost to
predators is one approach aimed at balancing the distribution of costs and
benefits of large carnivores and to deter local retaliatory killing. Another
approach is participatory monitoring, where communities use their own
cultural values, knowledge, and perceptions to engage in environmental
monitoring. We sampled four contiguous areas that were given various
treatments of compensation and/or participatory monitoring to test their
effect on lion killing. We relied on seven years of human-induced lion
mortality data collected from each site. The number of lions killed is used as
a proxy index for local tolerance of carnivores. Compensation payments had
a moderate impact on reducing lion killing; however, in times of extreme
conflict compensation alone did not significantly improve people’s tolerance
of lions. Participatory monitoring had a greater effect on decreasing lion
mortality by utilizing key component of Maasai culture, proactive conflict
mitigation methods, and by providing an economic opportunity for local
people to engage in pro-conservation behavior. Our analysis informs those
considering compensation payments or participatory monitoring programs
as strategies to enhance local tolerance for large carnivores, particularly in
developing countries.
2011-12-09 12:15 Simple decision analyses for metapopulation
viability of an endangered Australian amphibian
Heard, GW*, School of Botany, University of Melbourne; McCarthy,
MA, School of Botany, University of Melbourne; Parris, KM, School of
Botany, University of Melbourne; Scroggie, MP, Arthur Rylah Institute
for Environmental Research, Victorian Department of Sustainability
and Environment ;
Metapopulation models can provide clear direction to threatened species
management, yet these tools have rarely been applied to real-world problems.
Obstacles have included the abstract nature of some metapopulation models,
the limited capacity of these models to incorporate parameter uncertainty,
and the need for custom computer programs to apply them. In this study,
we used freely-available software to develop a Bayesian metapopulation
model for the endangered Growling Grass Frog, and coupled the model
with multicriteria decision analyses to critique management options for
this species. The model includes estimates of the effect of environmental
variables on extinction and colonisation rates, and propagates uncertainty in
these estimates through to predictions of metapopulation persistence under
differing management scenarios. Multicriteria decision analyses integrate
this uncertainty, using a simple outranking method to identify which
scenario gives the highest chance of metapopulation persistence across the
range of parameter estimates. We used the approach to identify optimal
wetland creation schemes for Growling Grass Frogs around Melbourne,
Victoria, Australia. Encouragingly, we were able to clearly discriminate
between proposed options in several cases, providing important direction
to managers. Given appropriate data, our approach represents a robust,
intuitive and straightforward means of critiquing management options for
metapopulations.
2011-12-07 10:45 The ‘genetic rescue’ of inbred populations using
translocations
Heber, S.*, University of Canterbury, Christchurch; Briskie, J.V.,
University of Canterbury, Christchurch;
Anthropogenic influences such as habitat loss and fragmentation, the
introduction of exotic predators, and excessive hunting have forced many
species through population bottlenecks. Decreased effective population size
during a bottleneck can lead to increased inbreeding and the loss of genetic
diversity, which both adversely affect population viability. Conservationists
are thus faced with the problem of protecting a number of fragmented
and inbred populations. The translocation of outbred individuals into
bottlenecked populations has been shown to mitigate the negative effects of
inbreeding and to restore genetic variability. However, this method depends
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