Shooting skinks for good: Producing a movie improves attitudes towards a threatened species

Economic valuation of a mesocarnivore's impact management

Red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) have interacted with humans during their common history. We used a contingent valuation method to assess the economic value of the management of this mesocarnivore's negative impacts. We carried out face-to-face interviews with 746 Greek residents, using a multiple-bounded discrete choice approach to estimate willingness to pay (WTP) for red fox management under three impact situations: attack domestic animals, reduce game, carry disease. About 51.9%, 33.0%, and 81.1% of the respondents stated a mean WTP of €34.1, €44.9, and €72.1 for each situation, respectively. The total annual amounts of €18.7 million, €15.7 million, and €61.7 million could be collected from the target population for red fox management when they attack domestic animals, reduce game, and carry disease, respectively. Attitudes and likeability toward foxes were negatively associated while knowledge about foxes and fear of them were positively associated with WTP. The younger, richer, less educated, rural, farmers, hunters, and pet owners were generally more willing to pay for red fox management across situations. Females were more willing to pay for managing predation on domestic animals, while males were more willing to pay for managing predation on game. Our findings showed that the Greek residents highly value the management of red foxes in all impact situations and would be valuable for further advising the management process.

Tasting to preserve: An educational activity to promote children's positive attitudes towards intraspecific diversity conservation

On the edge of causing the sixth big mass extinction event, the development of positive attitudes towards the conservation of intraspecific diversity from early ages is essential to overcome the biodiversity crisis we currently face. However, there is no information available on elementary school students' attitudes toward intraspecific diversity conservation nor is there a framework available to perform such analysis. For this study we designed, implemented, and evaluated an educational activity planned for third graders (8 to 13 years old) to explore the intraspecific diversity of vegetables and promote healthy eating habits. Additionally, a framework was developed to evaluate students' attitudes towards intraspecific diversity conservation and applied to semi-structured interviews conducted with students before and after engaging in the educational activity. In this paper we present a reliable framework, developed aligned with the ABC model of attitudes, based on literature, and adapted to elementary school students' responses, to evaluate students' attitudes toward intraspecific diversity. Our results show that, before the educational activity, most students choose a non-biodiverse option, justifying this choice with the affective component of attitudes: mostly emotional factors but also aesthetic and social/cultural factors. After the educational activity, we observed a significant increase in the frequency of students that choose the biodiverse option and that justified it with the cognitive component of attitudes: mainly with biology and health knowledge factors, but also with economic and ethical knowledge factors. Our findings support the positive impact of educational activities that explore vegetable varieties on students' attitudes toward intraspecific diversity conservation. This activity may also be used to foster education for sustainability and address socioscientific issues aligned with diverse sustainable development goals.

Promoting scientific literacy in evolution through citizen science

Evolutionary understanding is central to biology. It is also an essential prerequisite to understanding and making informed decisions about societal issues such as climate change. Yet, evolution is generally poorly understood by civil society and many misconceptions exist. Citizen science, which has been increasing in popularity as a means to gather new data and promote scientific literacy, is one strategy through which people could learn about evolution. However, despite the potential for citizen science to promote evolution learning opportunities, very few projects implement them. In this paper, we make the case for incorporating evolution education into citizen science, define key learning goals, and suggest opportunities for designing and evaluating projects in order to promote scientific literacy in evolution.