Occurrence In Protected Areas Research Articles

Distribution, habitat and population structure of the threatened Manning River helmeted turtle, Myuchelys purvisi

AbstractMany freshwater turtle species are threatened with extinction, but the implementation of effective conservation measures may be hindered by ignorance of their biology and ecology. We analysed the available monitoring data for a listed Endangered but poorly known species, the Manning River helmeted turtle (Myuchelys purvisi: Chelidae), to elucidate its geographic distribution and evaluate its relationships to broad‐scale environmental factors. We found M. purvisi to be common and widely distributed in the Manning River system, with a balanced population structure including a wide mix of size classes and a substantial juvenile component. The occurrence of the species was significantly positively associated with a larger stream size, which probably confers greater habitat availability and lower vulnerability to drying during drought. Mean carapace length was significantly lower in stream segments with higher average annual air temperature, suggesting that warmer conditions favour recruitment. However, occurrence and mean carapace length were not related to the proportion of conservation land in the immediate stream environs, suggesting that persistence of the species is not favoured simply by occurrence in protected areas, and threats may need active management. We provide some suggestions for further investigation of the species' ecology and vulnerability to potential threats.

Bibliometric Analysis on Wildfires and Protected Areas

Wildfire are increasingly frequent events on a planet undergoing climate change. With more favourable climate conditions for their occurrence, like prolonged periods of drought, the frequency and intensity of these catastrophes continue to increase. Protected areas are important territories for conserving ecosystems and biodiversity around the world and serve as a key management tool in national environmental policies. Many studies have been developed around the world to assess the conditions, frequency, and intensity of fires, and, on the other hand, protected areas are intensively studied to understand whether conservation actions are effective in keeping the ecosystem balanced. However, there are few studies that contemplate these two themes together. Consequently, this study offers a bibliometric analysis of the wildfires and its occurrence in protected areas, aiming to understand the spatial and temporal relation between them, characteristics of the research studies, and trending issues to be worked on. We used the Bibliometrix package in R language, which provides the option of different methods for analysing bibliometric data to understand the temporal evolution of the published documents about wildfires and protected areas. In total, 1116 publications were analysed, ranging from 1970 to 2022. The findings show that the terms “fires” (185 occurrences), “fire” (117), “wildfire” (101), and “forest fire” (92) are more frequently used and associated with studies on topics including biodiversity (304), conservation (221), environmental protection (188), deforestation (148), ecosystems (138), forestry (133), and climate change (126) as well as protected areas (399). The highest growth of research has been registered since 2002. The majority of the publications were published by authors from universities in the USA (77), South Africa (72), the United Kingdom (22), and Brazil (19). The USA leads all other countries with 7 of the top 10 international collaborations, followed by Brazil, Australia, and South Africa. However, only the United Kingdom continues to maintain an increased number of external (inter-country) collaborations, whereas the other nine continue to maintain an increased number of internal (intra-country). Considering the top 10 authors in terms of production, only 1 was active from 1999 to 2019, and the other 9 only have been active since 2009. The topics that stand out were subjected to a coupling analysis, which revealed that environmental protection is a motor theme, endangered species, Australia, and savannah are niche themes, and protected area, biodiversity, and fire management are basic themes.

Visitor Incidents in Western Australian Protected Areas, 2011–2017

Protected areas in Western Australia are a significant resource base for nature-based tourism and recreation. Visitor incidents are of special interest to managers of these areas because of concerns regarding public safety. The ongoing monitoring and analysis of visitor incidents plays a major role in reducing incident occurrence. Incident data recorded by the Parks and Wildlife Service from July 2011 to June 2017 were analyzed for an overview of trends and patterns of incident occurrence. For parks with the highest incident frequency, the level of risk experienced by visitors, combining incident probability and severity, was determined. A total of 459 visitor incidents were recorded, 77±11 per year. Minor incidents accounted for 48% of incidents, 43% were major, and 8% were fatal. Trip/Slip incidents were most frequent. Fatalities were mostly falls from a height or water-related incidents. Karijini National Park (highest number of incidents) and Ningaloo (highest number of fatalities) were identified as priority areas for managing visitor risk. The greatest individual visitor risk values were calculated for Mitchell River and Karijini national parks. Recreational injuries are of great concern to the Parks and Wildlife Service in Western Australia. Quantifying and categorizing visitor incidents helps in understanding the trends and patterns of incident occurrence in protected areas, and priority areas for targeted visitor risk management intervention can be identified.

The vulnerable colombian weasel Mustela felipei (Carnivora): new record from Colombia and a review of its distribution in protected areas

The Colombian weasel Mustela felipei is considered the rarest Neotropical carnivore only known from four localities in Colombia and one in Ecuador. It is considered Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List along its distributional range. We present an unexpected photographic record of a living specimen from Colombia that shed lights on its distribution on the Western Cordillera of Colombia, where it was previously known from single a record obtained on 1986. This is the first confirmed record of the Colombian weasel during the 21st century. Finally, we discuss the species’ occurrence in protected areas of Colombia, to provide tools for the conservation of this rare species.

Monitoring visitor injury in protected areas - analysis of incident reporting in two Western Australian parks

A large number of visitor injuries and fatalities are recorded in protected areas around the world each year. With the goal of reducing future accidents, it is critical for managing agencies to learn from past events by identifying why and under which circumstances visitor incidents occurred. This paper presents a retrospective analysis of visitor incident data recorded in Western Australian lands and waters managed by public agencies between July 2011 and June 2017. The aim of the study was to explore trends and patterns of incident occurrence, and by so doing, to examine whether current incident reporting practices in Western Australia are adequate to comprehensively understand incident occurrence in different park contexts. Using Karijini National Park and Ningaloo Coast World Heritage Area as case examples, different ways are presented how incident data collected can be utilised in relation to different park contexts. However, our study shows that incident monitoring in Western Australia is characterised by fragmentary recording of information, leading to difficulties in clearly understanding why and under which circumstances incidents occur. For example, whilst visitor risk levels across various times during the year were quantified in Karijini, illustrating that certain months are related to a greater risk of injury per park visit, insufficient data provision on weather conditions and visitor behaviour meant that no clear conclusions could be drawn on the causes of this trend. Similarly, whilst the data pointed towards a specific visitor group at high risk of harm in Ningaloo (i.e. unguided international visitors), a comparison to overall visitor data was not possible, which prevents making inferences about the extent of the potential issue identified. Management implicationsThe study illustrates that more comprehensive incident monitoring practices can help to better understand incident occurrence in protected areas, can improve awareness of the hazard situation relative to situational visitor characteristics, and can further refine visitor risk assessment and management processes. The paper also illustrates the importance of including potential contributing factors such as prevailing environmental conditions as well as visitor behaviour in incident reports for a more meaningful incident data analysis. Whilst this study provides some recommendations on the type of information that should be included in visitor incident reports, more work is needed to further establish a standardised incident reporting and monitoring system applicable to the management of visitor risk of injury in protected areas on a larger scale.

The Vulnerable giant anteaterMyrmecophaga tridactyla: new records from the Atlantic Forest highlands and an overview of its occurrence in protected areas in Brazil

AbstractThe giant anteaterMyrmecophaga tridactylais categorized as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, and is extinct in several locations as a result of environmental pressures. We present the first records of the giant anteater in the largest continuous expanse of the Atlantic Forest biome, in southern Brazil, highlighting its occurrence in the highlands of the Serra do Mar mountain range. During a camera-trapping survey of medium and large mammals we obtained two records of the species, one in 2013 and the other in 2014. These records from dense rainforest highlands indicate the importance of this environment for the giant anteater and highlight these areas as possible foci for future studies of the species. In addition, we present a review of the species’ occurrence in protected areas in Brazil, to provide a resource for the conservation of this species and for future re-evaluations.

The Tropical African GenusCrotonogynopsis(Euphorbiaceae), with Two New Species

The African genus Crotonogynopsis Pax (Euphorbiaceae) is revised to include four species, including two novelties, C. korupensis Kenfack & D. W. Thomas from the Korup National Park, Cameroon, and the Reserva Natural de Rio Campo in Equatorial Guinea; and C. australis Kenfack & Gereau from the southern part of the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania, with a distant outlier in Mozambique. Three of the four species are assigned the IUCN Red List category of Least Concern (LC) on the basis of their occurrence in protected areas with no known threats.

Molecules and morphology reveal overlooked populations of two presumed extinct Australian sea snakes (Aipysurus: Hydrophiinae).

The critically endangered leaf-scaled (Aipysurus foliosquamaI) and short-nosed (A. apraefrontalis) sea snakes are currently recognised only from Ashmore and Hibernia reefs ~600km off the northwest Australian coast. Steep population declines in both species were documented over 15 years and neither has been sighted on dedicated surveys of Ashmore and Hibernia since 2001. We examine specimens of these species that were collected from coastal northwest Australian habitats up until 2010 (A.foliosquama) and 2012 (A. apraefrontalis) and were either overlooked or treated as vagrants in conservation assessments. Morphological variation and mitochondrial sequence data confirm the assignment of these coastal specimens to A. foliosquama (Barrow Island, and offshore from Port Hedland) and A.apraefrontalis (Exmouth Gulf, and offshore from Roebourne and Broome). Collection dates, and molecular and morphological variation between coastal and offshore specimens, suggest that the coastal specimens are not vagrants as previously suspected, but instead represent separate breeding populations. The newly recognised populations present another chance for leaf-scaled and short-nosed sea snakes, but coastal habitats in northwest Australia are widely threatened by infrastructure developments and sea snakes are presently omitted from environmental impact assessments for industry. Further studies are urgently needed to assess these species’ remaining distributions, population structure, and extent of occurrence in protected areas.

Assessing the Impacts of Future Climate Change on Protected Area Networks: A Method to Simulate Individual Species' Responses

Global climate change, along with continued habitat loss and fragmentation, is now recognized as being a major threat to future biodiversity. There is a very real threat to species, arising from the need to shift their ranges in the future to track regions of suitable climate. The Important Bird Area (IBA) network is a series of sites designed to conserve avian diversity in the face of current threats from factors such as habitat loss and fragmentation. However, in common with other networks, the IBA network is based on the assumption that the climate will remain unchanged in the future. In this article, we provide a method to simulate the occurrence of species of conservation concern in protected areas, which could be used as a first-step approach to assess the potential impacts of climate change upon such species in protected areas. We use species-climate response surface models to relate the occurrence of 12 biome-restricted African species to climate data at a coarse (quarter degree-degree latitude-longitude) resolution and then intersect the grid model output with IBA outlines to simulate the occurrence of the species in South African IBAs. Our results demonstrate that this relatively simple technique provides good simulations of current species' occurrence in protected areas. We then use basic habitat data for IBAs along with habitat preference data for the species to reduce over-prediction and further improve predictive ability. This approach can be used with future climate change scenarios to highlight vulnerable species in IBAs in the future and allow practical recommendations to be made to enhance the IBA network and minimize the predicted impacts of climate change.

Effects of human–carnivore conflict on tiger (Panthera tigris) and prey populations in Lao PDR

AbstractUnique to South‐east Asia, Lao People's Democratic Republic contains extensive habitat for tigers and their prey within a multiple‐use protected area system covering 13% of the country. Although human population density is the lowest in the region, the impact of human occurrence in protected areas on tiger Panthera tigris and prey populations was unknown. We examined the effects of human–carnivore conflict on tiger and prey abundance and distribution in the Nam Et‐Phou Louey National Protected Area on the Lao–Vietnam border. We conducted intensive camera‐trap sampling of large carnivores and prey at varying levels of human population and monitored carnivore depredation of livestock across the protected area. The relative abundance of large ungulates was low throughout whereas that of small prey was significantly higher where human density was lower. The estimated tiger density for the sample area ranged from 0.2 to 0.7 per 100 km2. Tiger abundance was significantly lower where human population and disturbance were greater. Three factors, commercial poaching associated with livestock grazing followed by prey depletion and competition between large carnivores, are likely responsible for tiger abundance and distribution. Maintaining tigers in the country's protected areas will be dependent on the spatial separation of large carnivores and humans by modifying livestock husbandry practices and enforcing zoning.

Species Review of Amphibian Extinction Risks in Madagascar: Conclusions from the Global Amphibian Assessment

Abstract: We assessed the extinction risks of Malagasy amphibians by evaluating their distribution, occurrence in protected areas, population trends, habitat quality, and prevalence in commercial trade. We estimated and mapped the distribution of each of the 220 described Malagasy species and applied, for the first time, the IUCN Red List categories and criteria to all species described at the time of the assessment. Nine species were categorized as critically endangered, 21 as endangered, and 25 as vulnerable. The most threatened species occur on the High Plateau and/or have been subjected to overcollection for the pet trade, but restricted extent of occurrence and ongoing habitat destruction were identified as the most important factors influencing extinction threats. The two areas with the majority of threatened species were the northern Tsaratanana‐Marojejy‐Masoala highlands and the southeastern Anosy Mountains. The current system of protected areas includes 82% of the threatened amphibian species. Of the critically endangered species, 6 did not occur in any protected area. For conservation of these species we recommend the creation of a reserve for the species of the Mantella aurantiaca group, the inclusion of two Scaphiophryne species in the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species Appendix II, and the suspension of commercial collecting for Mantella cowani. Field surveys during the last 15 years reveal no pervasive extinction of Malagasy amphibians resulting from disease or other agents, as has been reported in some other areas of the world.

Protected areas and the conservation of grouse, partridges and pheasants in east Asia

Grouse, partridges and pheasants belong to the highly threatened avian order Galliformes. We collected together existing data on the distribution of these species in east Asia (China and Pakistan south and east to the Lesser Sundas in Indonesia and Palawan in the Philippines) from published and unpublished sources. From this we extracted 1068 records of 101 east Asian endemics (plus three other species that have been found in east Asian protected areas) in 369 protected areas. One species was found in 108 protected areas and a further two in 39 and 38 protected areas: six species were not known from any. Of the threatened endemics, 84% were recorded in 10 or fewer protected areas compared with 50% of endemic species that are non-threatened. A near-minimum network designed to include each species in three protected areas wherever possible comprised 49 irreplaceable sites and 33 others. Comparison with other studies should indicate which of these protected areas are also important for other groups of organisms, such as plants and swallowtail butterflies. There is a need for improvement in knowledge of occurrence in protected areas. This should be provided from further collation of existing information and from undertaking targeted surveys. There is also a need to consider which protected areas are suitable for inclusion in a network and how many such areas are required to ensure that each species is adequately represented.

Protected areas and the conservation of grouse, partridges and pheasants in east Asia

AbstractGrouse, partridges and pheasants belong to the highly threatened avian order Galliformes. We collected together existing data on the distribution of these species in east Asia (China and Pakistan south and east to the Lesser Sundas in Indonesia and Palawan in the Philippines) from published and unpublished sources. From this we extracted 1068 records of 101 east Asian endemics (plus three other species that have been found in east Asian protected areas) in 369 protected areas. One species was found in 108 protected areas and a further two in 39 and 38 protected areas: six species were not known from any. Of the threatened endemics, 84% were recorded in 10 or fewer protected areas compared with 50% of endemic species that are non‐threatened. A near‐minimum network designed to include each species in three protected areas wherever possible comprised 49 irreplaceable sites and 33 others. Comparison with other studies should indicate which of these protected areas are also important for other groups of organisms, such as plants and swallowtail butterflies. There is a need for improvement in knowledge of occurrence in protected areas. This should be provided from further collation of existing information and from undertaking targeted surveys. There is also a need to consider which protected areas are suitable for inclusion in a network and how many such areas are required to ensure that each species is adequately represented.