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Abstract
Abstract Mitigation-driven translocations represent an increasingly common management solution to reduce animal mortality and habitat loss caused by human development. Although they currently outnumber other translocation types, there is a lack of scientific approaches to evaluate the outcome of this management tool. We designed an experimental translocation with two groups of translocated males and two of control males of a small (6-14 g) lizard (totaling 120 individuals). Our results suggest that translocated individuals covered longer distances (53 vs. 18 m) from their respective release points in one month (on average), although this distance diminished over time. Displacing longer distances was associated with a body condition impoverishment and an increase in parasitization by ectoparasites. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that finds a positive relationship between covering longer distances and an increase in the number of mites. This was also explained by the initial mite load that lizards had, suggesting that controlling the infestation by mites is energetically demanding for lizards, being traded by locomotor activity. At least for those individuals in poorer body condition, we recommend the implementation of soft release (gradually accustoming individuals to their new environment by previously releasing them into controlled conditions) and deparasitization before accomplishing a mitigation-driven translocation.
Highlights
Human activities like overexploitation, agricultural development, urban expansion or infrastructure building currently threaten the survival of three quarters of the 82 000 species assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (Maxwell et al, 2016)
The human footprint will continue growing in the coming decades, as global infrastructure network is expected to continue its expansion in the coming years
Mitigation-driven translocations attempt to reduce animal mortality and to compensate habitat loss caused by human activities as individuals are moved to new, undisturbed areas (Germano et al, 2015)
Summary
Agricultural development, urban expansion or infrastructure building currently threaten the survival of three quarters of the 82 000 species assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (Maxwell et al, 2016). Mitigation-driven translocations (i.e., moving animals away from the path of development projects; called short-distance translocations) attempt to reduce animal mortality and to compensate habitat loss caused by human activities as individuals are moved to new, undisturbed areas (Germano et al, 2015). They can involve species of any conservation status (Germano et al, 2015). The success of mitigation-driven translocations is rarely monitored (but see Reinert and Rupert, 1999; Sullivan, Kwiatkowski and Chutt, 2004; Brown, Bishop and Brooks, 2009), which implies that their benefits for conservation remain unclear to date
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