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25th International Congress for Conservation Biology • Auckland, New Zealand • 5-9 December 2011 strategy, we undertook a literature review and conducted a workshop focused on subsurface predator facilitated foraging for seabirds within the US Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument. Experts clarified and ranked major research questions critical to understanding and managing the interaction and also proposed studies to address these questions. They were further asked to consider the potential impact of these methods on management objectives, the relevant spatial scale for research, the level of complexity and risk of methods, and cost and necessary frequency of studies. The workshop outputs will be used by managers to more efficiently apply limited funding to priority research questions. This plan details a framework for developing research questions and methods aimed at management strategies in data-poor regions such as pelagic MPAs. 2011-12-08 15:45 More than just nuts: Do Brazil nut concessions conserve biodiversity along the Interoceanic Highway in Peru? Larsen, TH*, Conservation International; Nunez, G, Amazon Conservation Association; The Interoceanic Highway is the first paved road to cut through the wilderness of the southwest Amazon. Road construction usually leads to deforestation and biodiversity loss. Brazil nut concessions support the principal nontimber forest product in Peru, providing local economic incentives for forest conservation outside of protected areas. Brazil nut concessions may therefore provide an effective tool for conserving biodiversity along the highway, although this has not previously been evaluated. We sampled mammal and dung beetle communities in eight Brazil nut concessions located at varying distances from the highway and the nearest large town. Overall, species richness and abundance of mammals and dung beetles was high in Brazil nut concessions. However, we found that hunting pressure varied strongly among sites, and heavily hunted concessions represent ‘empty forests’. Hunting appears to have a cascading impact on dung beetle communities; beetle species richness and biomass correlated positively with large mammal biomass, as well as primate biomass alone. Dung beetle species richness and biomass correlated positively with distance from road. Only beetle biomass correlated positively with distance from town. Promoting and expanding Brazil nut concessions can provide a useful strategy to maintain connectivity and biodiversity along the nascent Interoceanic Highway. However, it is imperative that illegal timber extraction and hunting are properly regulated in concessions. 2011-12-08 18:30 Conservation Priorities for Mexican Islands LATOFSKI-ROBLES, MARIAM*, Grupo de Ecología y Conservación de Islas, A.C.; Aguirre-Muñoz, A., Grupo de Ecología y Conservación de Islas, A.C.; Méndez-Sánchez, F., Grupo de Ecología y Conservación de Islas, A.C.; Reyes-Hernandez, H., Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí; Schlüter, S., Fachhochschule Köln; An accurate science-based planning is essential to maximize the investment’s return in conservation efforts to protect biodiversity, especially when funds are limited. This is particularly important in threatened and fragile areas, such as the islands worldwide, which have small land surface area but very high species richness and endemisms. In the case of the Mexican islands, through the prioritization of sites with desired attributes, we seek to prevent extinctions and protect more species with less investment. Mexico, being a megadiverse country, has approximately 1,600 islands and islets (only 0.2% of the country’s surface). Just 149 Mexican islands host 7% of all Mexican vertebrate and plant species as well as 18% of threatened birds and mammals. Furthermore, the eradication of invasive vertebrates on islands has proved to be a very efficient restoration tool. To prevent extinctions and restore insular ecosystems, 49 eradications have been successfully conducted on 30 Mexican islands. A similar number of eradications, on more complex and larger islands are pending. Prioritization is recognized as an essential tool to achieve a strategic goal: to have all the Mexican islands free of invasive vertebrates in the coming years. A GIS-based multicriteria decision analysis is being developed, involving geographical data (islands and archipelagos), the conservation preferences, and the combination of data and preferences based on decision rules. Important attributes taken into account are: species richness, endemisms, threatened species, biosecurity risks, presence of invasive species, human population and activities, and natural resources, among others. This endeavour will guide future restoration and sustainable development plans, providing information for conservation practitioners, government agencies and donors to decide on which islands and when to program the conservation efforts. 2011-12-06 16:45 Towards participatory ecosystem-based planning in Indonesia: a case study in the Moluccas Laumonier, Y*, CIRAD-CIFOR; Locatelli, B, CIRAD-CIFOR; Bourgeois, R, CIRAD; Shantiko, B, CIFOR; Ecosystem based planning is often seen as a key element in new strategies for mainstreaming forest biodiversity conservation and maintaining essential ecosystem support services. The main objective of the participatory ecosystem based planning program in the Moluccas, Indonesia, included the need to take into account priorities of local stakeholders within the conditions set by the local environmental conditions. To properly engage and acquire comprehensive information from local communities and government, we use methods such as Participatory Prospective Analysis (PPA), and collaborative biophysical and social data recording for the preparation of an ecosystem based land use zoning. While the necessity for revising the existing plan was explicitly identified with stakeholders and given official recognition by the local government, other more technical results concern a collaboratively made set of specific planning recommendations, developing a collaborative logical, rule-based approach (a model) that was used to introduce our ecosystem based planning approach in Indonesia. Based on such results, several micro-project activities have been collaboratively identified that should benefit both local population and conservation of the natural resources. Challenges remain in trying to integrate such an ecosystem based planning into land-use planning in Indonesia and recommendations are made for future research in that area. 2011-12-06 10:30 Assaulting avarice: combating World Growth International and its anti-environmental allies Laurance, William F.*, James Cook University; World Growth International (WGI), a Washington, D.C.-based lobby group, has established itself as one of the leading critics of the global environmental movement. WGI will not reveal its funding sources, but appears to be supported primarily by multinational corporations involved in logging, oil palm, and pulp and paper plantations in Southeast Asia. By aggressively attacking efforts to promote tropical forest conservation— including REDD initiatives, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, World Bank guidelines encouraging sustainable development, and nearly any critic of the corporations it apparently represents—WGI speaks to an eager pro-development constituency. It is a mistake to dismiss WGI as a fringe group or to ignore its wide-ranging efforts. Although using a litany of dubious claims, slanted arguments, and aggressive tactics, WGI is wellfunded and staffed and has close associations with other vocal conservative groups, including the U.S. Tea Party, ITS Global in Australia, and the Consumers Alliance for Global Prosperity. I will describe my personal efforts and those of colleagues to combat the tactics of WGI and its founder, former Australian ambassador Alan Oxley. 2011-12-07 11:00 Ecosystem decay of Amazonian forest fragments Laurance, William F.*, James Cook University; Lovejoy, Thomas E., George Mason University; I will synthesize key findings from the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project, the world’s largest and longest-running experimental study of habitat fragmentation. Although initially designed to assess the influence of fragment area on the Amazonian biota, the project has yielded insights that go far beyond the original scope of the study. Results suggest that edge effects play a key role in fragment dynamics, that the matrix has a major influence on fragment connectivity and functioning, and that many Amazonian species avoid even small (
25th International Congress for Conservation Biology • Auckland, New Zealand • 5-9 December 2011 W. Macdonald, WildCRU, Oxford University; Despite differences in focus, goals and strategies between animal welfare and conservation biology, both are inextricably linked in many ways, and greater consideration of animal welfare has considerable potential for increasing conservation success. Nevertheless, animal welfare is not often considered explicitly within conservation practice. Welfare considerations are particularly relevant in reintroductions where human intervention is extensive. We carried out a systematic review of the recent scientific, and web-based, literature on animal reintroductions (mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles, but not fish). We quantified the occurrence of potential animal welfare and ethical issues in reintroductions, and reviewed monitoring that is currently carried out that might indicate animal welfare status, and supportive actions that might improve welfare. We identified seven aspects of reintroductions that currently appear to be underutilised, that we believe are relevant to welfare concerns and warrant further attention and we outline welfare and ethical considerations throughout the reintroduction process. We propose that an Ethical Review Process is implemented for reintroduction projects, similar to that required for animal research in the UK, as a mechanism by which welfare and ethical considerations could be better incorporated into reintroduction projects and formally evaluated on a case-by-case basis. 2011-12-07 14:04 Methods for multi-species conservation planning in the context of global change Lawson, DM*, San Diego State University; Multi-species conservation planning approaches are needed because coexisting species respond differently to threats and management. I present an approach using quantitative conservation objective functions to synthesize risk of quasi-extinction (QER) from single-species, single-patch stochastic population models. The objective function results for a set of management scenarios are summed within a framework developed using habitat suitability projections representing the extent and overlap of suitable habitat under the present and two future climate scenarios. Management scenarios are then ranked and the optimum selected for each climate scenario. I tested alternate objective functions, QER thresholds and species sets to evaluate the influence on the management rankings. I used results from metapopulation models to evaluate dispersal effectiveness to inform reserve design and the need for translocations. My case study involves four species of southern California’s coastal chaparral, a highly fragmented landscape. The species differ in response to the primary threats of altered fire regime and, due to differing dispersal abilities, habitat fragmentation. My results show the management rankings to be robust across QER thresholds, conservation objective and climate scenario. However, some QER thresholds failed to distinguish among management alternatives reducing the influence of one species on the rankings. Thus thresholds should be selected that distinguish among management. The species set can strongly influence the rankings. Dispersal even for the species with the best ability was not effective in the case study thus connectivity is a lower priority that patch area and future artificial dispersal may be required. 2011-12-08 18:30 Long-distance dispersal by spores – How fat is the tail? LÖNNELL, NIKLAS*, Plant Ecology, Department of Botany, Stockholm University,SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden; Hylander, Kristoffer, Plant Ecology, Department of Botany, Stockholm University,SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden; Jonsson, Bengt Gunnar, Department of Natural Sciences, Engineering and Mathematics, Mid Sweden University, SE-851 70 Sundsvall, Sweden; Sundberg, Sebastian, Department of Plant Ecology, Evolutionary Biology Centre (EBC), Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18 D, SE-752 36 Uppsala, Sweden ; Dispersal is a key process important for understanding many conservation issues like expansion of invasive species, survival of populations in fragmented landscapes, and species responses to climate change. However the dispersal ability of species with small diaspores is still poorly known. To study the long-distance dispersal of small diaspores, we transplanted a reproducing mother colony of the moss Discelium nudum (spore diameter > 20 μm) into a non-habitat matrix in two open areas where the species did not occur in the immediate vicinity and in a region where it is generally rare. Approximately 2000 pots with suitable substrate (acidic clay) were placed at distances up to 600 m and 1 km. From 40–50 m the maximum colonization rate was stable with mean colonizations of between 1 % up to 600 m and 20 % up to 1 km, in the two areas. This study extends the studied range by two orders of magnitude compared to most previous experiments. A fat tail of the dispersal curve for many species with small diaspores is in agreement with the inference from other studies on shorter distances and from modelling. However, the surprisingly high colonization rate at the longest distances in this study (600, and 1000 m) suggests a mixing of large number of spores in the air before the colonization took place. This study raises interesting questions about the role of a single dispersal source to build up a high background deposition at landscape scale. 2011-12-08 14:08 The effect of forest habitat change on the breeding success of an area-sensitive passerine- A multi-temporal approach Le Tortorec, E*, University of Turku; Suorsa, P, University of Turku; Helle, S, University of Turku; Käyhkö, N, University of Turku; Hakkarainen, H, University of Turku; Habitat fragmentation has been shown to have large, consistently negative effects on a wide variety of species by, for example, increasing predation rates and decreasing reproductive success. Although habitat fragmentation has been extensively studied in a number of species the methodology used has been somewhat one-sided since landscapes have generally been assumed to be static in models. In this study we constructed a multi-year database of habitat structure to study how intense forest harvesting affects the breeding success of an area-sensitive species, the Eurasian treecreeper (Certhia familiaris). We used an eight- year dataset (1999-2006) of morphological and breeding data from treecreepers in Central Finland and combined it with six classified Landsat images from the study period. For each year we calculated the area of mature forests around each nest box at the breeding territory (200m) and landscape (500m) scales. The classified images showed that commercial forestry caused clear changes in the amount of habitat even between single years. We also found that the amount of forest habitat at the breeding territory scale was positively associated with the number of fledglings produced. We suggest that incorporating landscape change into species studies is necessary in order to realistically model dynamic specieshabitat interactions. Our study shows that this can be accomplished through a simple classification performed on freely available satellite images. 2011-12-08 15:00 Scale effects on indicators of biodiversity state facing global changes: The relevance of the mean species trait approach to evaluate the biodiversity fate. Le Viol, Isabelle*, National Museum of Natural History, UMR7204 MNHN-CNRS-UPMC; Porcher, Emmanuelle, National Museum of Natural History, UMR7204 MNHN-CNRS-UPMC; Julliard, Romain, National Museum of Natural History, UMR7204 MNHN-CNRS-UPMC; Jiguet, Fredéric, National Museum of Natural History, UMR7204 MNHN-CNRS-UPMC; Kerbiriou, Christian, National Museum of Natural History, UMR7204 MNHN-CNRS-UPMC; Devictor, Vincent, ISEM, UMR 5554; The ecological meaning and the relevance of biodiversity indicators for the evaluation of biodiversity state are still debated and not clearly established. Recent studies suggest that a new family of biodiversity indicators, reflecting variations in explicit species-specific traits in species assemblages (Mean Species Traits Abundance, MSTA), is relevant to survey biodiversity trends facing global changes. Here, we highlight the strengths and weaknesses of these indicators both from practical and ecological perspectives, focusing on their relevance at different scales. Using the trend in the community specialisation index as case-study, we show that this metric, which can be easily adapted on several taxonomic groups (plant, invertebrate, vertebrate) either with presence/absence or abundance data, is sensitive to several human pressures at various spatial and temporal scales. Applied on trends in Bird communities facing human pressures (fragmentation, urbanisation, agriculture intensification), we highlight particularly their independence to scale effects in comparison with more classical indices (richness, diversity). Our results, which highlight the ongoing functional biotic homogenization process from local to global spatial scale, show the relevance of such mean species trait approach. 91
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Index Benini, Rubens 42 Beniston, M
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Index DeWan, Amielle 14 Dianne Brun
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Index Hilborn, Ray 27 Hill, CM 176
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Index Loutit, R. 116 Louwe Kooijman
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Index Ottewell, K 81 Overton, J 61,
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Index Sequeira, Ana 151 Serebryakov
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Index Winandy, L 181 Winner, J. 112
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