2009 Conference - Talk abstracts
Download the entire 2009 Book of Abstracts here.
Impacts of coral decline for Caribbean reef architecture
Lorenzo Alvarez-Filip
Centre for Ecology Evolution and Conservation, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom NR4 7TJ
Email: lorenzoalvarezf@yahoo.com
Corals are declining worldwide but the consequences of this mortality for reef architecture are still unknown. Here I explore whether declines in coral cover in the Caribbean have been mirrored by changes in reef architecture. I collated and analysed a region-wide database of Caribbean reefs on which both factors has been measured in more than one year. The rate of loss was twice more severe for coral cover than for reef architecture. The rate of coral loss did not vary with hurricane impact or protected area status but reef architecture has declined faster in sites impacted by hurricanes and inside protected areas.
Carnivore conservation in Ghana
Andrew Coleman Ora Burton
Dept. of Environmental Science, Policy & Management, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Email: cburton@nature.berkeley.edu
Carnivore populations in West Africa face significant threat yet are poorly studied. We used camera traps to conduct the first assessment of carnivores in Mole National Park, Ghana, a regionally significant protected area. Only 9 of 16 historically occurring species were detected across 245 camera stations deployed for 5046 trap-nights between October 2006 and November 2008. The top predator, lion, appears to be extirpated. Spotted hyena and leopard are among the more resilient species. Prey and habitat availability appear suitable to support predators, but hunting pressure is high. Carnivore demise may be due to direct persecution and park isolation.
The implementation of REDD:lessons from Nantu
Murray Benjamin Collins
Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Buckhurst Road, Ascot, Berkshire SL5 7PY UK
Email: murray_collins@hotmail.com
This presentation explores the implementation of a new policy to tackle climate change: REDD. Debate continues in the international arena over its funding and structure; key forest states even question the scheme per se. While these high level discussions continue, this work considers how the huge sums of money mooted might actually be used in the field to ensure forest conservation. Who will ultimately receive the potential windfall, and how will it be spent? This presentation discusses core concepts of scale, additionality and conditionality within the context of a protected Indonesian forest – Nantu, home of the babirussa.
The impact of war on conservation in Sierra Leone
Abu Conteh
Victoria University of Wellington, Environmental Studies Programme, School of Geography, Environment, & Earth Sciences, Wellington, New Zealand Email: Abu.Conteh@vuw.ac.nz
This presentation will show the impact of war on biodiversity conservation in a tropical rain forest - the Western Area Peninsula Forest Reserve in Sierra Leone. This reserve protects the westernmost extent of the Upper Guinea Forests, which holds a large amount of biodiversity, including some endemic and highly threatened species.
The reserve has faced various threats. The talk shall present results obtained using a new method - Threat Status Assessment (TSA), and an old one – trend analysis (TA) to assess changes in threat levels to biodiversity over three periods of time – before the war, during, and after.
The study showed that threat levels worsened over the 3 periods for high war impact communities but was only so during the war for low war impact communities. Threat such as stone breaking, housing construction, and power-saw logging which were unknown in the reserve before the war became common during the war and worsened afterwards. Results obtained using TSA were consistent with those using trend analyses.
Population declines in Africa's protected areas
Ian Craigie
Conservation Science Group, Zoology Department, University of Cambridge Email: idc28@cam.ac.uk
The ecological performance of Protected Areas (PAs) in terms of the long term persistence of their key biodiversity features remains poorly understood. Here, we use a new database of 530 time series from 73 PAs and 65 species within Africa to create population trends. The population trends are aggregated to form an index showing the overall change of abundances. The index shows a decline in population abundance of over 50% between 1970 and 2004.
Indices for different regions of Africa demonstrate that there are large regional differences with Southern Africa maintaining its’ populations and Western Africa suffering declines over 80%.
Land Cover in Atlantic Forest Reserves
André Almeida Cunha
Mammalogy and Fauna Management Lab., Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil. Ecology, Conservation and Wildlife Management Graduated Programme. Email: cunha.andre@gmail.com
Recent investments on the creation of protected areas around the world benefit soft reserves. I compared vegetation types protected in hard and soft reserves of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. Hard reserves (n= 231) harbour forest remnants on 76% of its area. 40% of soft reserves (n= 191) and 9% of hard reserves area protects human landscapes, mainly pastures. Soft reserves are not the best investment for biodiversity protection, but could be considered favourable paths for landscape conservation planning. Evergreen forest is well protected in hard reserves (15% of its remnants), but dry (4%) and mixed forest (1%) need urgent protection.
Managing wet grasslands for breeding waders
Sarah May Eglington
British Trust for Ornithology, The Nunnery, Thetford, Norfolk, IP24 2PU Email: sarah_eglington@tiscali.co.uk
Breeding waders are undergoing declines across Europe. Management techniques include using wet features to hold water within the landscape throughout the breeding season to provide feeding habitats. Late in the season, chicks using fields with higher densities of wet features had better body condition than those in fields with low densities.
Empirical support for demographic Allee effects
Stephen David Gregory
Ecologie, Systématique & Evolution, Université Paris-Sud, 91405
Orsay France Email: stephen.gregory@u-psud.fr
Demographic allee effects, defined as a positive relationship between total fitness and population size, may cause reduced fitness in small populations, threatening their persistence. Yet they are neglected in management plans. Using a suite of population dynamical models, I quantified their empirical support in dynamics of 1198 populations and assessed biases in their detection. I found sparse support for daes and illustrated how time series length and measurement error, but not local climatic variation, affect their detection. Contrary to supposition, dae evidence was unrelated to the minimum observed population size. Detecting such dynamics requires collection of appropriate data (and errors).
Consumers alone can't save our fish
Jennifer Linn Jacquet
Aquatic Ecosystems and Research Laboratory, 2202 Main Mall, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C. V6K 1Z4 Canada
Email: j.jacquet@fisheries.ubc.ca
Are consumer-based initiatives (such as seafood certification schemes like the MSC) enough to save the world's wild fish stocks from demise? No. They are popular among industry and consumers and, for certain things, such as encouraging suppliers to adopt better practices, they can be significant. But when it comes to the fate of world fisheries, there are better conservation avenues, even within markets. Several market-based measures may be more effective conservation strategies, such as the use of negative messaging to motivate large retailers, the promotion of fishmeal alternatives, and the elimination of harmful fisheries subsidies.
Lighting the way to reducing disorientation of turtle hatchlings in India
Divya Karnad
Post Graduate Program in Wildlife Biology and Conservation,Wildlife Conservation Society-India Program & Centre for Wildlife Studies, National Centre for Biological Sciences, Hebbal, Bangalore 560 065 India
Email: ecodivs@gmail.com
Sea finding in olive ridley sea turtle hatchlings is disrupted by artificial coastal lighting. In India, this endangered turtle is threatened by industrial lighting and development along key nesting beaches. We undertook the first study in India addressing the response of hatchlings to different light types and in-situ lighting conditions. Using choice and arena experiments we found that hatchlings were least affected by low intensity light particularly of the red band of the spectrum. Casuarina plantations along the coast can act as effective light barriers and could be used as a cheap stop-gap solution to hatchling disorientation along extensive coastlines.
Coexistence of river dolphins and fishermen
Nachiket Kelkar
M.Sc. Wildlife Biology and Conservation, WCS-India Program, National Centre for Biological Sciences (TIFR), Bangalore 560065, India
Email: rainmaker.nsk@gmail.com
Millions of poor fishermen dependent on river ecosystems in India share the habitat of endangered Ganges river dolphins. In the Vikramshila Sanctuary, both dolphins and fishing activity showed very similar preferences for habitat and small fishes. Sampling at selected sites under different fishing intensity levels, in dolphin-preferred and unpreferred habitats, showed lower fish-prey biomass in highly fished sites. Resource-competition may have aggravated due to historical decline in larger-sized fish, indicated by high proportions of small-sized fish (75%). Restoration of declining resources and providing alternative livelihoods to fishermen might reduce overlap and help conserve dolphins and fisheries through sustainable co-existence.
Sustainability and consumer preferences in the Cambodian wild meat trade
Benjamin P. Y-H. Lee
Central Nature Reserve,Conservation Division, National Parks Board, Singapore, 1 Cluny Road, Singapore 259569
Email: benjamin.lee@alumni.nus.edu.sg
Understanding the dynamics of wildlife trade and the motivations of people involved are vital to conserving species impacted by that trade. Using both biological and social methods, I investigated the general wild meat trade in an urban market in the town of Banlung, Ratanakiri. The results confirm that wild meat is not a basic protein source, as livestock and fish are more available and are also preferred and consumed more than wild meat. It is also shown that urban dwellers like to consume wild meat and the demand is inelastic. Strategies to curb consumption would need to incorporate non-market measures.
Fishing for scraps in an uncertain sea
Aaron Savio Lobo
Evolutionary Ecology Group, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge. CB2 3EJ
Email: asl34@cam.ac.uk
Trawl fishing is a destructive fishing practice that generates large quantities of economically unviable bycatch (trash fish). However, with declining fish stocks and profits, fishers are finding commercial value in ‘trash fish’, now a crucial constituent of poultry feed. Trawlers were monitored along the Coromandel coast of India (July-September 2008) to understand drivers of trash fish landing. A stepwise multiple regression identified CPUE of commercial catch (negative), total gross profits and total catch (positive) as the most important variables explaining the amount of trash landed. Trash fish acts as an important economic driver and could be subsidizing an overexploited industry.
Measuring conservation success in Nantu Nature Reserve, Indonesia
Ewan Alexander Macdonald
Environmental Change Institute School of Geography and the Environment, Oxford University Centre for the Environment, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY Email: ewan.macdonald@ouce.ox.ac.uk
This interdisciplinary study uses techniques such as GIS analyses and semi-structured interviews with local stakeholders to evaluate first; the effectiveness of forest protection in Nantu Nature Reserve, Sulawesi (and the challenges to such assessment), and second; the impact of different conservation actions in delivering this protection. Interesting questions raised by this study include: (i) limitations of remote-sensing for quantifying forest loss, (ii) ineffectiveness of park protection without additional support, (iii) major contribution of vigorous guarding and enforcement, (iv) absence of a single metric for measuring success, and (v) the necessity of developing financial mechanisms such as REDD to reward stakeholders.
Hedgerow networks - disappearance & conservation
Kristina Molnarova, Ph.D.
Faculty of Environmental Science, Czech University of Life Sciences, Kamycka 1176165 21, Prague 6 - Suchdol, Czech Republic
Email: kristina.molnarova@gmail.com
Hedgerow-defined medieval field patterns, known as “pluzinas”, are valuable historical landscapes in the Czech Republic. This study evaluates the development of pluzina hedgerows in the Plzen Region. Between 1950 and 2005, 341 out of 483 hedgerows were lost in the study areas, and the total length of the hedgerows decreased by 71%. The most significant factors that have influenced the disappearance of hedgerows are natural soil fertility and current land use in adjacent areas, which is also significant in interaction with slope gradient and with historical land use. Based on these results, guidelines for pluzina conservation and restoration are proposed.
Lessons from local people: community-based conservation in Tanzania
Baruani Mshale
School Of Natural Resources And Environment, University Of Michigan, 440 Church Street, Ann Arbor MI 48103, USA
Email: bimshale@umich.edu
My talk analyzes the additional effect of climate variability on the design and implementation of the already failing community based conservation (CBC) approach using the case of Morogoro District, Tanzania. CBC arose as a result of the clear failure of conventional conservation approaches that failed to integrate rural development and wildlife conservation. Climate variability impacts in terms of erratic rainfall magnify existing CBC challenges including human-wildlife conflicts, rural poverty, wildlife populations’ decrease and habitat alterations. Conversely climate variability impacts provide opportunities for CBC to benefit from other strategies such as REDD, Ecotourism, CDMs and other conservation compatible land use changes.
Impacts of resettlement on wildlife in northern Ethiopia
Mulubrhan Gebremikael
Mekelle University, Main Campus, Post Box 3057, Mekelle, Tigray, Ethiopia Email: mulubsweet@yahoo.com
Successive Ethiopian governments have been relocating poor farmers in the destitute highlands to the hitherto unpopulated rangelands. In North West Ethiopia, a hostile war zone, African elephants and other big wildlife, are threatened by encroachment of new settlements. To see the effect of re-settlement; vegetation and wildlife attributes were measured from around new settlements. Re-settlement resulted in a decreased density (80%, 90%) and diversity (49.6%, 96%) of woody species and wild life respectively. More than 90 % of the encountered wildlife was on areas 5km away from villages. Illegally killed wildlife was also encountered (e.g. 10 African elephants). While could be justifiable from its socio-economic motives, re-settlement is destroying the already dwindling wildlife and rangeland vegetation.
Farming and wildlife conservation in India.
Malvika Onial
Conservation Science Group, Zoology Department, University of Cambridge Email: mo294@cam.ac.uk
The expansion and intensification of agriculture are amongst the greatest threats to wildlife worldwide. Wildlife-friendly farming and land sparing are two major approaches that seek to minimize the impact of farming on wildlife. My study aims to inform the assessment of these two contrasting approaches by analysing the responses of wildlife across a gradient of land-use intensity in northern India. Analysis of the relationship between agricultural yields and population densities of birds and trees showed species-specific responses with different shapes of density-yield functions. In the case of birds, at least 50% of all species of unmodified habitat (forest) were absent from farmland.
Black grouse and plantation forestry in Scotland
Jenny Owen
School of Biological & Environmental Sciences, University of Stirling, FK9 4LA, Scotland Email: jo12@stir.ac.uk
The dramatic decline of black grouse (Tetrao tetrix) has been linked to the maturation of 1950’s forestry plantations and subsequent loss of ground vegetation. This study aims to determine how management following clearfell can increase suitable habitat. Our results show that coupes are most valuable for black grouse 2 to 5 years after restocking with young trees. At this age, invertebrate density reaches an optimum level for black grouse chicks. Ground vegetation species composition and structure is also optimal for nesting requirements and brood cover. Results enable conservation advice to be targeted at forest planners, ensuring that ‘optimal age’ restocks are consistently available in rotation as the forest matures.
Farming and tropical forest biodiversity
Ben Phalan
Conservation Science Group, Zoology Department, University of Cambridge Email: btp22@cam.ac.uk
The human population of sub-Saharan Africa is increasing rapidly, creating a need to increase food production. If this increase comes from cropland expansion, it will damage forests. If it comes from intensification, it will reduce the biodiversity value of species-rich traditional agroforestry systems. I quantify the responses of a range of species to intensification and extensification, and use information on crop yields and profits to examine the options for producing more food with least harm to tropical forest species in Ghana. My results suggest that conservation strategies should focus first on protecting the irreplaceable biodiversity of intact tropical forests.
Governance of Chinese Marine Protected Areas
Wanfei Qiu
Department of Geography, University College London, Pearson Building, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT UK
Email: wanfei.qiu@gmail.com
There are growing academic and policy debates on how best to govern protected areas. This study evaluates the governance of marine protected areas (MPAs) in China through three in-depth case studies of MPAs in China coupled with a programme of policy analysis. Results show that fostering bottom-up participation in MPA management in China faces the obstacles of lack of support for strategic conservation and lack of historical experiences in public participation. Further devolution in MPA governance in China needs to be pursued carefully to better address the balance between conservation, economic and community interests.
Genetics of a recovering island endemic-the Mauritius parakeet
Claire Raisin
Durrell Institute of Conservation & Ecology, Marlowe Building, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NR
Email: cr200@kent.ac.uk
Despite its rapid recovery from less than 20 individuals to over 350 today the endemic Mauritius parakeet (Psittacula eques) is still under threat. The emergence of Psittacine Beak and Feather Disease (PBFD), a highly contagious viral disease, is limiting the way in which the population can be managed. Disease prevalence and recovery data is being considered alongside genetic data to investigate the possible impacts of inbreeding on disease resistance. Understanding the spread of the disease will not just help the Mauritius parakeet programme but also help to manage the spread of emerging infectious diseases in other conservation projects.
Identifying sites for conserving golden mantella frogs in Madagascar
Randrianavelona Roma
Madagaskara Voakajy, B.P. 5181 Antananarivo 101 Madagascar Email: romagasy@gmail.com
Golden frog is a critically endangered specie that have a restricted range in Madagascar. Many of its sites were in small patches of humid forest subject to anthropogenic pressure lead to habitat conversion due to slash and burn activity. However, contemporary scientific data is missed. We analysed available scientific documents and interviewed local peoples to localise sites. Density estimation is done with a standard method on each confirmed site. We found 25 sites. None occurred in protected. An excess of 1333 frogs/ha were found at five sites. 16 sites received temporary status new protected area after our promotion.
Unnoticed mollusc extinctions
Claire Régnier
Muséum National d’Histoire naturelle, Département Systématique et Evolution – Malacologie, Paris, France
Email: cregnier@mnhn.fr
Molluscs are the group most affected by extinction according to the 2008 IUCN Red List and this despite the facts that it has not been re-evaluated since 2000 and that the quality of information for invertebrates is far lower than for vertebrates. Altogether, 302 species are listed as extinct in the Red List. A reevaluation of listed extinct mollusc species, bibliographic research and consultation with experts have led to almost doubling of the number of known mollusc extinctions. We suggest that assessment of the conservation status of invertebrate species is not only neglected in the IUCN Red list but is also not managed in the same way as for vertebrate species.
Decline in Manx shearwater breeding success
Samuel Riou
Institute of Integrative and Comparative Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT
Email: fbssr@leeds.ac.uk
Through an annual comparison of data dating back to 1965, Manx shearwaters breeding in Wales show record low weight of fledglings in 2007-2008 associated with a reduction in parental attendance. This is linked to warming waters, and although not tightly associated to the concurrent decline in availability of their prey, it is related to a reduction in prey quality. These findings show that environmental change, possibly in conjunction with anthropogenic pressures on fish stocks, is affecting a species of top conservation value to the UK, a species that until now has never been reported as experiencing poor breeding success.
Habitat fragmentation reduces survival in a tropical bird
Viviana Ruiz-Gutierrez
Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Bird Population Studies, 159 Sapsucker Woods Rd, Ithaca, NY 14850 Email: vr45@cornell.edu
Population ecology research has focused on linking environmental features with the viability of populations. We looked at the effect of forest fragmentation on survival of a tropical forest bird. We found a significant difference in annual adult apparent survival rates for individuals marked and recaptured in forest fragments vs. individuals marked and recaptured in the larger LCBSFR (χ2 = 5.022; df =1; P = 0.025). Our results suggest that forest fragmentation is likely having an effect on population dynamics for this species, and populations that appear to be persisting in fragmented landscapes might still be at risk of local extinction.
Impacts of extreme climatic events in aquatic ecosystems
Ronaldo Sousa
CIIMAR – Centre of Marine and Environmental Research, Rua dos Bragas 289, 4050-123 Porto, Portugal.
Email: ronaldo.sousa@ciimar.up.pt
The long-term study of the mollusc community of the River Minho tidal freshwater wetlands provides the opportunity to discuss the consequences of the 2005 heatwave on these organisms. The results using different sampling strategies revealed: i) clear changes in the abiotic conditions in the peak of the heatwave; ii) a clear collapse of the mollusc fauna during the heatwave; iii) a clear change in the mollusc community structure when we compare before and after the heatwave period. After 2005 only the non-indigenous invasive species Corbicula fluminea recover their earlier abundance and biomass. In contrast, until now, the other mollusc species abundance and biomass remained dramatically low.
Ecosystem-based management in the Red Sea
Dawit Tesfamichael
Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia, 2202 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada
Department of Marine Sciences, University of Asmara, P.O.Box 1220 Asmara, Eritrea Email: d.tesfamichael@fisheries.ubc.ca
An ecosystem based fisheries management, using Ecopath with Ecosim modelling and semi-structured interviews, was used to examine the Red Sea ecosystem and to address the conflict among the stakeholders in order to conserve the ecosystem and the livelihood of the communities. The ecosystem model quantified the trophic interactions throughout the ecosystem with special emphasis given to the changes due to fishing while the interviews were used to fill the information gaps during modelling and to understand the perception of the fishers. The results predict what will happen to the ecosystem and the coastal communities under different scenarios.
Fishery declines: an historical perspective
Ruth Helen Thurstan
Environment Department, University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5DD Email: rht500@york.ac.uk
This research compiles Government data on demersal (bottom living) fish landings into England and Wales from 1889 to 2006. Landings and vessel data were used to calculate changes in fishing power of the fleet of large trawl and longline vessels, providing a time series of landings of fish per unit of fishing power (LPUP) of nearly 120 years. Initial findings suggest that since the late 19th century, LPUP has declined by over 95%, signifying a massive underlying loss of biomass from the seas fished by the England and Wales fleet during the last century.
Carbon storage in agricultural landscapes
Amy S. I. Wade
Centre for Agri-Environmental Research, Department of Agriculture, University of Reading, UK Email: a.s.wade@reading.ac.uk
Deforestation and agricultural intensification cause significant carbon emissions contributing to climate change. The value of traditional cocoa agroforest as a carbon store is compared to forest similar to that from which it was derived and also to more intensive cocoa cropping systems. The traditional system stores considerably more carbon than the intensive system and a large proportion of that stored in forest. However, it also has lower productivity and thus higher spatial requirements to produce the same yield as more intensive systems. Management that maximises both carbon storage and productivity at wider spatial scales is examined.
