A multispecies assessment of wildlife impacts on local community livelihoods.

Conflicts between the interests of agriculture and wildlife conservation are a major threat to biodiversity and human well-being globally. Addressing such conflicts requires a thorough understanding of the impacts associated with living alongside protected wildlife. Despite this, most studies reporting on human-wildlife impacts and the strategies used to mitigate them focus on a single species, thus oversimplifying often complex systems of human-wildlife interactions. We sought to characterize the spatiotemporal patterns of impacts by multiple co-occurring species on agricultural livelihoods in the eastern Okavango Delta Panhandle in northern Botswana through the use of a database of 3264 wildlife-incident reports recorded from 2009 to 2015 by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks. Eight species (African elephants [Loxodonta africana], hippopotamuses [Hippopotamus amphibious], lions [Panthera leo], cheetah [Acinonyx jubatus], African wild dogs [Lycaon pictus], hyenas [Crocuta crocuta], leopards [Panthera pardus], and crocodiles [Crocodylus niloticus]) appeared on incident reports, of which 56.5% were attributed to elephants. Most species were associated with only 1 type of damage (i.e., either crop damage or livestock loss). Carnivores were primarily implicated in incident reports related to livestock loss, particularly toward the end of the dry season (May-October). In contrast, herbivores were associated with crop-loss incidents during the wet season (November-April). Our results illustrate how local communities can face distinct livelihood challenges from different species at different times of the year. Such a multispecies assessment has important implications for the design of conservation interventions aimed at addressing the costs of living with wildlife and thereby mitigation of the underlying conservation conflict. Our spatiotemporal, multispecies approach is widely applicable to other regions where sustainable and long-term solutions to conservation conflicts are needed for local communities and biodiversity.

Article Impact Statement: Impacts of protected wildlife on local community livelihoods can vary and overlap across species, spatial scales, and time of the year. Una Evaluación Multiespecie de los Impactos de la Fauna sobre el Sustento de la Comunidad Local Resumen Los conflictos entre los intereses de la agricultura y la conservación de fauna son una gran amenaza para la biodiversidad y el bienestar humano en todo el mundo. Para tratar estos conflictos se requiere un entendimiento exhaustivo de los impactos asociados con la convivencia con fauna protegida. A pesar de esto, la mayoría de los estudios que reportan sobre los impactos humano-fauna y las estrategias que se usan para mitigarlos se enfocan en una sola especie, lo que simplifica demasiado los complejos sistemas de interacciones humano-fauna. Buscamos caracterizar los patrones espaciotemporales de los impactos por múltiples especies coocurrentes sobre el sustento agrícola en la franja oriental del Delta del Okavango al norte de Botswana mediante el uso de una base de datos de 3,264 reportes de incidentes con fauna registrados entre 2009 y 2015 por el Departamento de Vida Silvestre y Parques Nacionales. Ocho especies (elefante africano [Loxodonta africana], hipopótamo [Hippopotamus amphibious], león [Panthera leo], chita [Acinonyx jubatus], licaón [Lycaon pictus], hiena [Crocuta crocuta], leopardo [Panthera pardus] y cocodrilo [Crocodylus niloticus]) aparecieron en los reportes de incidentes, de los cuales el 56.5% estaba atribuido a los elefantes. La mayoría de las especies estuvo asociada sólo con un tipo de daño (es decir, daño a cultivos o pérdida de ganado). Los carnívoros fueron los principales implicados en los reportes de incidentes relacionados con la pérdida de ganado, particularmente hacia el final de la temporada seca (mayo-octubre). Al contrario, los herbívoros estuvieron asociados con los incidentes de pérdida de cultivos durante la temporada de lluvias (noviembre-abril). Nuestros resultados ejemplifican cómo las comunidades locales pueden enfrentar diferentes dificultades en su sustento por parte de diferentes especies durante diferentes periodos en el año. Tal evaluación multiespecie tiene consecuencias importantes para el diseño de las intervenciones de conservación enfocadas en la resolución de los efectos de la convivencia con la fauna y por lo tanto la mitigación del conflicto de conservación subyacente. Nuestro enfoque multiespecie espaciotemporal puede aplicarse ampliamente a otras regiones en donde las comunidades y la biodiversidad local necesitan soluciones sustentables y a largo plazo para los conflictos de conservación.

Predicting intervention priorities for wildlife conflicts.

There is growing interest in developing effective interventions to manage socially and environmentally damaging conservation conflicts. There are a variety of intervention strategies that can be applied in various contexts, but the reasons one type of intervention is chosen over another remain underexplored. We surveyed conservation researchers and practitioners (n = 427) to explore how characteristics of conflicts and characteristics of decision makers influence recommendations to alleviate conservation conflict. Using a full-factorial design, we experimentally manipulated 3 aspects of the descriptions of 8 different wildlife-conflict scenarios (development status of the conflict country, conflict framing, and legality of killing wild animals) and recorded which of 5 intervention types (wildlife impact reduction, awareness, enforcement, economic incentives, or stakeholder engagement) respondents prioritized. We also recorded information on respondents' demographic and disciplinary backgrounds. Stakeholder-based interventions were recommended most often in the survey and in written feedback. However, when we fitted multinomial mixed logit models with fully completed scenario responses (n = 411), recommendations were influenced by small changes in the details of conflict and differed according to respondent characteristics. Enforcement and awareness interventions were prioritized relatively more for conflicts in more highly developed nations and by respondents with more natural science backgrounds and relatively less experience with conflict. Contrastingly, economic interventions were prioritized more when wildlife killing was described as illegal. Age, gender, and development status of the respondent's home country also predicted some intervention decisions. Further, interrogating the influences shaping conservation decision making will further helps in the development of evidence-informed interventions.

Predicción de Prioridades de Intervención para Conflictos de Vida Silvestre Resumen Existe un creciente interés en desarrollar intervenciones efectivas para gestionar conflictos de conservación social y ambientalmente dañinos. Hay una variedad de estrategias de intervención que pueden ser aplicadas en diversos contextos, pero las razones por las que se selecciona un tipo de estrategia han sido poco exploradas. Encuestamos a investigadores y a profesionales de la conservación (n = 427) para explorar cómo influyen las características tanto de los conflictos como de los tomadores de decisiones en las recomendaciones para mitigar conflictos de conservación. Mediante un diseño factorial completo, manipulamos experimentalmente 3 aspectos de las descripciones de 8 escenarios de conflictos de vida silvestre diferentes (nivel de desarrollo del país en conflicto, encuadre del conflicto y legalidad de la matanza de animales silvestres) y registramos la priorización de 5 tipos de intervención (disminución del impacto de la vida silvestre, sensibilización, cumplimiento, incentivos económicos o participación de las partes interesadas) por los encuestados. También registramos información sobre los antecedentes demográficos y disciplinares de los encuestados. Las intervenciones basadas en las partes interesadas fueron recomendadas con mayor frecuencia en las encuestas y en la retroalimentación escrita. Sin embargo, cuando ajustamos los modelos logit mixtos multinomiales con repuestas de escenarios completos (n = 411), las recomendaciones se vieron influenciadas por pequeños cambios en los detalles del conflicto y diferían según las características de los encuestados. Las intervenciones de cumplimiento y sensibilización fueron relativamente más priorizadas para conflictos en naciones altamente desarrolladas y por encuestados con formación en ciencias naturales y relativamente menos experiencia con conflictos. En contraste, las intervenciones económicas fueron más priorizadas cuando la matanza de vida silvestre era descrita como ilegal. La edad, el género y nivel de desarrollo del país de origen del encuestado también predijeron algunas decisiones de intervención. Una mayor profundización en las influencias que configuran la toma de decisiones en conservación promoverá el desarrollo de intervenciones basadas en evidencias.

Quantifying the expected value of uncertain management choices for over-abundant Greylag Geese.

In many parts of the world, conservation successes or global anthropogenic changes have led to increasing native species populations that then compete with human resource use. In the Orkney Islands, Scotland, a 60-fold increase in Greylag Goose Anser anser numbers over 24 years has led to agricultural damages and culling attempts that have failed to prevent population increase. To address uncertainty about why populations have increased, we combined empirical modelling of possible drivers of Greylag Goose population change with expert-elicited benefits of alternative management actions to identify whether to learn versus act immediately to reduce damages by geese. We built linear mixed-effects models relating annual goose densities on farms to land-use and environmental covariates and estimated AICc model weights to indicate relative support for six hypotheses of change. We elicited from experts the expected likelihood that one of six actions would achieve an objective of halting goose population growth, given each hypothesis for population change. Model weights and expected effects of actions were combined in Value of Information analysis (VoI) to quantify the utility of resolving uncertainty in each hypothesis through adaptive management and monitoring. The action with the highest expected value under existing uncertainty was to increase the extent of low quality habitats, whereas assuming equal hypothesis weights changed the best action to culling. VoI analysis showed that the value of learning to resolve uncertainty in any individual hypothesis for goose population change was low, due to high support for a single hypothesis of change. Our study demonstrates a two-step framework that learns about the most likely drivers of change for an over-abundant species, and uses this knowledge to weight the utility of alternative management actions. Our approach helps inform which strategies might best be implemented to resolve uncertainty when there are competing hypotheses for change and competing management choices.

Data-poor management of African lion hunting using a relative index of abundance.

Sustainable management of terrestrial hunting requires managers to set quotas restricting offtake. This often takes place in the absence of reliable information on the population size, and as a consequence, quotas are set in an arbitrary fashion, leading to population decline and revenue loss. In this investigation, we show how an indirect measure of abundance can be used to set quotas in a sustainable manner, even in the absence of information on population size. Focusing on lion hunting in Africa, we developed a simple algorithm to convert changes in the number of safari days required to kill a lion into a quota for the following year. This was tested against a simulation model of population dynamics, accounting for uncertainties in demography, observation, and implementation. Results showed it to reliably set sustainable quotas despite these uncertainties, providing a robust foundation for the conservation of hunted species.

Understanding scales of movement: animals ride waves and ripples of environmental change.

Animal movements are the primary behavioural adaptation to spatiotemporal heterogeneity in resource availability. Depending on their spatiotemporal scale, movements have been categorized into distinct functional groups (e.g. foraging movements, dispersal, migration), and have been studied using different methodologies. We suggest striving towards the development of a coherent framework based on the ultimate function of all movement types, which is to increase individual fitness through an optimal exploitation of resources varying in space and time. We developed a novel approach to simultaneously study movements at different spatiotemporal scales based on the following proposed theory: the length and frequency of animal movements are determined by the interaction between temporal autocorrelation in resource availability and spatial autocorrelation in changes in resource availability. We hypothesized that for each time interval the spatiotemporal scales of moose Alces alces movements correspond to the spatiotemporal scales of variation in the gains derived from resource exploitation when taking into account the costs of movements (represented by their proxies, forage availability NDVI and snow depth respectively). The scales of change in NDVI and snow were quantified using wave theory, and were related to the scale of moose movement using linear mixed models. In support of the proposed theory we found that frequent, smaller scale movements were triggered by fast, small-scale ripples of changes, whereas infrequent, larger scale movements matched slow, large-scale waves of change in resource availability. Similarly, moose inhabiting ranges characterized by larger scale waves of change in the onset of spring migrated longer distances. We showed that the scales of movements are driven by the scales of changes in the net profitability of trophic resources. Our approach can be extended to include drivers of movements other than trophic resources (e.g. population density, density of related individuals, predation risk) and may facilitate the assessment of the impact of environmental changes on community dynamics and conservation.

A novel approach to assessing the prevalence and drivers of illegal bushmeat hunting in the serengeti.

Assessing anthropogenic effects on biological diversity, identifying drivers of human behavior, and motivating behavioral change are at the core of effective conservation. Yet knowledge of people's behaviors is often limited because the true extent of natural resource exploitation is difficult to ascertain, particularly if it is illegal. To obtain estimates of rule-breaking behavior, a technique has been developed with which to ask sensitive questions. We used this technique, unmatched-count technique (UCT), to provide estimates of bushmeat poaching, to determine motivation and seasonal and spatial distribution of poaching, and to characterize poaching households in the Serengeti. We also assessed the potential for survey biases on the basis of respondent perceptions of understanding, anonymity, and discomfort. Eighteen percent of households admitted to being involved in hunting. Illegal bushmeat hunting was more likely in households with seasonal or full-time employment, lower household size, and longer household residence in the village. The majority of respondents found the UCT questions easy to understand and were comfortable answering them. Our results suggest poaching remains widespread in the Serengeti and current alternative sources of income may not be sufficiently attractive to compete with the opportunities provided by hunting. We demonstrate that the UCT is well suited to investigating noncompliance in conservation because it reduces evasive responses, resulting in more accurate estimates, and is technically simple to apply. We suggest that the UCT could be more widely used, with the trade-off being the increased complexity of data analyses and requirement for large sample sizes. Una Aproximación Novedosa para Evaluar la Prevalencia y Factores de la Cacería Ilegal en el Serengueti.

Incentivizing monitoring and compliance in trophy hunting.

Conservation scientists are increasingly focusing on the drivers of human behavior and on the implications of various sources of uncertainty for management decision making. Trophy hunting has been suggested as a conservation tool because it gives economic value to wildlife, but recent examples show that overharvesting is a substantial problem and that data limitations are rife. We use a case study of trophy hunting of an endangered antelope, the mountain nyala (Tragelaphus buxtoni), to explore how uncertainties generated by population monitoring and poaching interact with decision making by 2 key stakeholders: the safari companies and the government. We built a management strategy evaluation model that encompasses the population dynamics of mountain nyala, a monitoring model, and a company decision making model. We investigated scenarios of investment into antipoaching and monitoring by governments and safari companies. Harvest strategy was robust to the uncertainty in the population estimates obtained from monitoring, but poaching had a much stronger effect on quota and sustainability. Hence, reducing poaching is in the interests of companies wishing to increase the profitability of their enterprises, for example by engaging community members as game scouts. There is a threshold level of uncertainty in the population estimates beyond which the year-to-year variation in the trophy quota prevented planning by the safari companies. This suggests a role for government in ensuring that a baseline level of population monitoring is carried out such that this level is not exceeded. Our results illustrate the importance of considering the incentives of multiple stakeholders when designing frameworks for resource use and when designing management frameworks to address the particular sources of uncertainty that affect system sustainability most heavily. Incentivando el Monitoreo y el Cumplimiento en la Caza de Trofeos.

Understanding and overcoming obstacles in adaptive management.

Adaptive management (AM) is widely promoted to improve management of natural resources, yet its implementation is challenging. We show that obstacles to the implementation of AM are related not only to the AM process per se but also to external factors such as ecosystem properties and governance systems. To overcome obstacles, there is a need to build capacities within the AM process by ensuring adequate resources, management tools, collaboration, and learning. Additionally, building capacities in the legal and institutional frames can enable the necessary flexibility in the governance system. Furthermore, in systems experiencing profound changes in wildlife populations, building such capacities may be even more critical as more flexibility will be needed to cope with increased uncertainty and changed environmental conditions.

From migration to nomadism: movement variability in a northern ungulate across its latitudinal range.

Understanding the causes and consequences of animal movements is of fundamental biological interest because any alteration in movement can have direct and indirect effects on ecosystem structure and function. It is also crucial for assisting spatial wildlife management under variable environmental change scenarios. Recent research has highlighted the need of quantifying individual variability in movement behavior and how it is generated by interactions between individual requirements and environmental conditions, to understand the emergence of population-level patterns. Using a multi-annual movement data set of 213 individual moose (Alces alces) across a latitudinal gradient (from 56 degrees to 67 degrees N) that spans over 1100 km of varying environmental conditions, we analyze the differences in individual and population-level movements. We tested the effect of climate, risk, and human presence in the landscape on moose movements. The variation in these factors explained the existence of multiple movements (migration, nomadism, dispersal, sedentary) among individuals and seven populations. Population differences were primarily related to latitudinal variation in snow depth and road density. Individuals showed both fixed and flexible behaviors across years, and were less likely to migrate with age in interaction with snow and roads. For the predominant movement strategy, migration, the distance, timing, and duration at all latitudes varied between years. Males traveled longer distances and began migrating later in spring than females. Our study provides strong quantitative evidence for the dynamics of animal movements in response to changes in environmental conditions along with varying risk from human influence across the landscape. For moose, given its wide distributional range, changes in the distribution and migratory behavior are expected under future warming scenarios.

Leapfrog migration and residents: New migratory habits in Swedish Greylag geese.

Knowledge about intraspecific and individual variation in bird migration behavior is important to predict spatiotemporal distribution, patterns of phenology, breeding success, and interactions with the surrounding environment (e.g., human livelihoods). Such variation is key to adaptive, evolutionary responses, i.e., how individuals respond spatiotemporally to the environment to maximize fitness. In this study we used GPS location data from one to three full annual cycles from 76 Greylag geese (Anser anser) to test the hypothesis that geese originating at five latitudinally separated capture sites in Sweden have different migration strategies. We also assessed individual consistency in movement strategy over consecutive annual cycles. We used the scale-independent net squared displacement modeling framework to quantify variables of autumn and spring migration for geese from each capture site: distance, timing, and duration. Our results demonstrate a positive correlation between migration distance and latitudinal origin. Geese from the northernmost site on average migrated farther south and about 15 times as far as the short-moving or resident geese from the two southernmost sites. Movement strategies of individual geese varied considerably both within and among capture sites. Individual consistency in movement strategy from one annual cycle to the consecutive was high in geese from the northern sites moving the farthest, whereas the resident or short-moving geese from the southernmost sites generally showed lower or no individual consistency. These changes have come about during a time span so short (i.e., ca. 35 years or 8-10 generations) that it can unlikely be explained by classical Darwinian between-generation adaptation. Consequently, and given that young geese follow their parents during their first migration, we presume an important role of within-family, inter-generation change as a driver behind the large-scale changed migration habits in Swedish Greylag geese.

Quantifying the checks and balances of collaborative governance systems for adaptive carnivore management.

Recovering or threatened carnivore populations are often harvested to minimise their impact on human activities, such as livestock farming or game hunting. Increasingly, harvest quota decisions involve a set of scientific, administrative and political institutions operating at national and sub-national levels whose interactions and collective decision-making aim to increase the legitimacy of management and ensure population targets are met. In practice, however, assessments of how quota decisions change between these different actors and what consequences these changes have on population trends are rare.We combine a state-space population modelling approach with an analysis of quota decisions taken at both regional and national levels between 2007 and 2018 to build a set of decision-making models that together predict annual harvest quota values for Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) in Norway.We reveal a tendency for administrative decision-makers to compensate for consistent quota increases by political actors, particularly when the lynx population size estimate is above the regional target. Using population forecasts based on the ensemble of decision-making models, we show that such buffering of political biases ensures lynx population size remains close to regional and national targets in the long term.Our results go beyond the usual qualitative assessment of collaborative governance systems for carnivore management, revealing a system of checks and balances that, in the case of lynx in Norway, ensures both multi-stakeholder participation and sustainable harvest quotas. Nevertheless, we highlight important inter-regional differences in decision-making and population forecasts, the socio-ecological drivers of which need to be better understood to prevent future population declines. Synthesis and applications. Our work analyses the sequence of decisions leading to yearly quotas for lynx harvest in Norway, highlighting the collaborative and structural processes that together shape harvest sustainability. In doing so, we provide a predictive framework to evaluate participatory decision-making processes in wildlife management, paving the way for scientists and decision-makers to collaborate more widely in identifying where decision biases might lie and how institutional arrangements can be optimised to minimise them. We emphasise, however, that this is only possible if wildlife management decisions are documented and transparent.

Achieving international biodiversity targets: Learning from local norms, values and actions regarding migratory waterfowl management in Kazakhstan.

Migratory species are protected under international legislation; their seasonal movements across international borders may therefore present opportunities for understanding how global conservation policies translate to local-level actions across different socio-ecological contexts. Moreover, local-level management of migratory species can reveal how culture and governance affects progress towards achieving global targets. Here, we investigate potential misalignment in the two-way relationship between global-level conservation policies (i.e. hunting bans and quotas) and local-level norms, values and actions (i.e. legal and illegal hunting) in the context of waterfowl hunting in northern Kazakhstan as a case-study.Northern Kazakhstan is globally important for waterfowl and a key staging area for arctic-breeding species. Hunting is managed through licences, quotas and seasonal bans under UN-AEWA intergovernmental agreements. To better understand the local socio-ecological context of waterfowl hunting, we take a mixed-methods approach using socio-ecological surveys, informal discussions and population modelling of a focal migratory goose species to: (a) investigate motivations for hunting in relation to socio-economic factors; (b) assess knowledge of species' protection status; and (c) predict the population size of Lesser White-fronted Geese (LWfG; Anser erythropus; IUCN Vulnerable) under different scenarios of survival rates and hunting offtake, to understand how goose population demographics interact with the local socio-ecological context.Model results showed no evidence that waterfowl hunting is motivated by financial gain; social and cultural importance were stronger factors. The majority of hunters are knowledgeable about species' protection status; however, 11% did not know LWfG are protected, highlighting a key area for increased stakeholder engagement.Simulations of LWfG population growth over a 20-year period showed LWfG are highly vulnerable to hunting pressure even when survival rates are high. This potential impact of hunting highlights the need for effective regulation along the entire flyway; our survey results show that hunters were generally compliant with newly introduced hunting regulations, showing that effective regulation is possible on a local level. Synthesis and applications. Here, we investigate how global conservation policy and local norms interact to affect the management of a threatened migratory species, which is particularly important for the protection and sustainable management of wildlife that crosses international borders where local contexts may differ. Our study highlights that to be effective and sustainable in the long-term, global conservation policies must fully integrate local socio-economic, cultural, governance and environmental contexts, to ensure interventions are equitable across entire species' ranges. This approach is relevant and adaptable for different contexts involving the conservation of wide-ranging and migratory species, including the 255 migratory waterfowl covered by UN-AEWA (United Nations Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds).

Impact of unintentional selective harvesting on the population dynamics of red grouse.

1. The effect of selective exploitation of certain age, stage or sex classes (e.g., trophy hunting) on population dynamics is relatively well studied in fisheries and sexually dimorphic mammals. 2. Harvesting of terrestrial species with no morphological differences visible between the different age and sex classes (monomorphic species) is usually assumed to be nonselective because monomorphicity makes intentionally selective harvesting pointless and impractical. But harvesting of the red grouse (Lagopus lagopus scoticus), a monomorphic species, was recently shown to be unintentionally selective. This study uses a sex- and age-specific model to explore the previously unresearched effects of unintentional harvesting selectivity. 3. We examine the effects of selectivity on red grouse dynamics by considering models with and without selectivity. Our models include territoriality and parasitism, two mechanisms known to be important for grouse dynamics. 4. We show that the unintentional selectivity of harvesting that occurs in red grouse decreases population yield compared with unselective harvesting at high harvest rates. Selectivity also dramatically increases extinction risk at high harvest rates. 5. Selective harvesting strengthens the 3- to 13-year red grouse population cycle, suggesting that the selectivity of harvesting is a previously unappreciated factor contributing to the cycle. 6. The additional extinction risk introduced by harvesting selectivity provides a quantitative justification for typically implemented 20-40% harvest rates, which are below the maximum sustainable yield that could be taken, given the observed population growth rates of red grouse. 7. This study shows the possible broad importance of investigating in future research whether unintentionally selective harvesting occurs on other species.

A model-driven approach to quantify migration patterns: individual, regional and yearly differences.

1. Animal migration has long intrigued scientists and wildlife managers alike, yet migratory species face increasing challenges because of habitat fragmentation, climate change and over-exploitation. Central to the understanding migratory species is the objective discrimination between migratory and nonmigratory individuals in a given population, quantifying the timing, duration and distance of migration and the ability to predict migratory movements. 2. Here, we propose a uniform statistical framework to (i) separate migration from other movement behaviours, (ii) quantify migration parameters without the need for arbitrary cut-off criteria and (iii) test predictability across individuals, time and space. 3. We first validated our novel approach by simulating data based on established theoretical movement patterns. We then formulated the expected shapes of squared displacement patterns as nonlinear models for a suite of movement behaviours to test the ability of our method to distinguish between migratory movement and other movement types. 4. We then tested our approached empirically using 108 wild Global Positioning System (GPS)-collared moose Alces alces in Scandinavia as a study system because they exhibit a wide range of movement behaviours, including resident, migrating and dispersing individuals, within the same population. Applying our approach showed that 87% and 67% of our Swedish and Norwegian subpopulations, respectively, can be classified as migratory. 5. Using nonlinear mixed effects models for all migratory individuals we showed that the distance, timing and duration of migration differed between the sexes and between years, with additional individual differences accounting for a large part of the variation in the distance of migration but not in the timing or duration. Overall, the model explained most of the variation (92%) and also had high predictive power for the same individuals over time (69%) as well as between study populations (74%). 6. The high predictive ability of the approach suggests that it can help increase our understanding of the drivers of migration and could provide key quantitative information for understanding and managing a broad range of migratory species.

The role of risk perception and affect in predicting support for conservation policy under rapid ecosystem change.

Conservation conflicts are damaging for humans and wildlife, with differences in people's objectives fuelling challenges of managing complex, dynamic systems. We investigate the relative importance of economic, psychological (affect, trust and risk perception) and ecological factors in determining farmers' management preferences, using Greenland barnacle geese (Branta leucopsis) on Islay, Scotland, as a case study. Barnacle geese reduce agricultural productivity on Islay, negatively impacting household economies. Since 1992, farmers have received partial compensation but a new culling scheme has escalated conflict between conservation and agricultural interests. Using a questionnaire, we collected data from 75% of the farmers receiving goose payments. We found that affect was a strong driver of both risk perception and management preferences. However, we revealed complexity in these relationships, with trust and economic factors also influencing decision-making. Psychological and economic factors surrounding wildlife management must be understood if we are to achieve conservation objectives in human dominated landscapes.

Measuring the intensity of conflicts in conservation.

Conflicts between the interests of biodiversity conservation and other human activities pose a major threat to natural ecosystems and human well-being, yet few methods exist to quantify their intensity and model their dynamics. We develop a categorization of conflict intensity based on the curve of conflict, a model originally used to track the escalation and deescalation of armed conflicts. Our categorization assigns six intensity levels reflecting the discourse and actions of stakeholders involved in a given conflict, from coexistence or collaboration to physical violence. Using a range of case studies, we demonstrate the value of our approach in quantifying conflict trends, estimating transition probabilities between conflict stages, and modeling conflict intensity as a function of relevant covariates. By taking an evidence-based approach to quantifying stakeholder behavior, the proposed framework allows for a better understanding of the drivers of conservation conflict development across a diverse range of socioecological scenarios.

New directions in management strategy evaluation through cross-fertilization between fisheries science and terrestrial conservation.

On 1 and 2 June 2010, an international meeting was held at the University of Paris Sud XI, France, organized within the framework of the EU FP7 consortium project HUNT, to bring together fisheries and conservation scientists to discuss a unified framework for the future of management strategies for harvested species.

Lost in space? Searching for directions in the spatial modelling of individuals, populations and species ranges.

The workshop 'Spatial models in animal ecology, management and conservation' held at Silwood Park (UK), 9-11 March 2010, aimed to synthesize recent progress in modelling the spatial dynamics of individuals, populations and species ranges and to provide directions for research. It brought together marine and terrestrial researchers working on spatial models at different levels of organization, using empirical as well as theory-driven approaches. Different approaches, temporal and spatial scales, and practical constraints predominate at different levels of organization and in different environments. However, there are theoretical concepts and specific methods that can fruitfully be transferred across levels and systems, including: habitat suitability characterization, movement rules, and ways of estimating uncertainty.