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Moor H, Bergamini A, Vorburger C, Holderegger R, Bühler C, Bircher N, Schmidt BR. Building pondscapes for amphibian metapopulations. CONSERVATION BIOLOGY : THE JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR CONSERVATION BIOLOGY 2024:e14165. [PMID: 38711380 DOI: 10.1111/cobi.14281] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/05/2023] [Revised: 02/09/2024] [Accepted: 02/19/2024] [Indexed: 05/08/2024]
Abstract
The success of ponds constructed to restore ecological infrastructure for pond-breeding amphibians and benefit aquatic biodiversity depends on where and how they are built. We studied effects of pond and landscape characteristics, including connectivity, on metapopulation dynamics of 12 amphibian species in Switzerland. To understand the determinants of long-term occupancy (here summarized as incidence), environmental effects on both colonization and persistence should be considered. We fitted dynamic occupancy models to 20 years of monitoring data on a pond construction program to quantify effects of pond and landscape characteristics and different connectivity metrics on colonization and persistence probabilities in constructed ponds. Connectivity to existing populations explained dynamics better than structural connectivity metrics, and simple metrics (distance to the nearest neighbor population, population density) were useful surrogates for dispersal kernel-weighted metrics commonly used in metapopulation theory. Population connectivity mediated the persistence of conservation target species in new ponds, suggesting source-sink dynamics in newly established populations. Population density captured this effect well and could be used by practitioners for site selection. Ponds created where there were 2-4 occupied ponds within a radius of ∼0.5 km had >3.5 times higher incidence of target species (median) than isolated ponds. Species had individual preferences regarding pond characteristics, but breeding sites with larger (≥100 m2) total water surface area, that temporarily dried, and that were in surroundings with maximally 50% forest benefitted multiple target species. Pond diversity will foster amphibian diversity at the landscape scale.
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Affiliation(s)
- Helen Moor
- Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
- Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology Eawag, Dübendorf, Switzerland
| | - Ariel Bergamini
- Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
| | - Christoph Vorburger
- Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology Eawag, Dübendorf, Switzerland
- Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Rolf Holderegger
- Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
- Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | | | - Nicolas Bircher
- Sektion Natur and Landschaft, Kanton Aargau, Aarau, Switzerland
| | - Benedikt R Schmidt
- info fauna karch, Neuchâtel, Switzerland
- Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland
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Paniw M, García-Callejas D, Lloret F, Bassar RD, Travis J, Godoy O. Pathways to global-change effects on biodiversity: new opportunities for dynamically forecasting demography and species interactions. Proc Biol Sci 2023; 290:20221494. [PMID: 36809806 PMCID: PMC9943645 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2022.1494] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/23/2023] Open
Abstract
In structured populations, persistence under environmental change may be particularly threatened when abiotic factors simultaneously negatively affect survival and reproduction of several life cycle stages, as opposed to a single stage. Such effects can then be exacerbated when species interactions generate reciprocal feedbacks between the demographic rates of the different species. Despite the importance of such demographic feedbacks, forecasts that account for them are limited as individual-based data on interacting species are perceived to be essential for such mechanistic forecasting-but are rarely available. Here, we first review the current shortcomings in assessing demographic feedbacks in population and community dynamics. We then present an overview of advances in statistical tools that provide an opportunity to leverage population-level data on abundances of multiple species to infer stage-specific demography. Lastly, we showcase a state-of-the-art Bayesian method to infer and project stage-specific survival and reproduction for several interacting species in a Mediterranean shrub community. This case study shows that climate change threatens populations most strongly by changing the interaction effects of conspecific and heterospecific neighbours on both juvenile and adult survival. Thus, the repurposing of multi-species abundance data for mechanistic forecasting can substantially improve our understanding of emerging threats on biodiversity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Paniw
- Department of Conservation Biology and Global Change, Estación Biológica de Doñana (EBD-CSIC), Seville, 41001 Spain.,Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Zurich 8057, Switzerland
| | - David García-Callejas
- Department of Integrative Ecology, Estación Biológica de Doñana (EBD-CSIC), Seville, 41001 Spain.,Instituto Universitario de Investigación Marina (INMAR), Departamento de Biología, Universidad de Cádiz, Campus Río San Pedro, 11510 Puerto Real, Spain
| | - Francisco Lloret
- Center for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF), Cerdanyola del Vallès 08193, Spain.,Department Animal Biology, Plant Biology and Ecology, Universitat Autònoma Barcelona, Cerdanyola del Vallès 08193, Spain
| | - Ronald D Bassar
- Department of Biological Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA
| | - Joseph Travis
- Department of Biological Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA
| | - Oscar Godoy
- Instituto Universitario de Investigación Marina (INMAR), Departamento de Biología, Universidad de Cádiz, Campus Río San Pedro, 11510 Puerto Real, Spain
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Amir Z, Sovie A, Luskin MS. Inferring predator-prey interactions from camera traps: A Bayesian co-abundance modeling approach. Ecol Evol 2022; 12:e9627. [PMID: 36523521 PMCID: PMC9745391 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.9627] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/05/2022] [Revised: 10/14/2022] [Accepted: 11/20/2022] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Predator-prey dynamics are a fundamental part of ecology, but directly studying interactions has proven difficult. The proliferation of camera trapping has enabled the collection of large datasets on wildlife, but researchers face hurdles inferring interactions from observational data. Recent advances in hierarchical co-abundance models infer species interactions while accounting for two species' detection probabilities, shared responses to environmental covariates, and propagate uncertainty throughout the entire modeling process. However, current approaches remain unsuitable for interacting species whose natural densities differ by an order of magnitude and have contrasting detection probabilities, such as predator-prey interactions, which introduce zero inflation and overdispersion in count histories. Here, we developed a Bayesian hierarchical N-mixture co-abundance model that is suitable for inferring predator-prey interactions. We accounted for excessive zeros in count histories using an informed zero-inflated Poisson distribution in the abundance formula and accounted for overdispersion in count histories by including a random effect per sampling unit and sampling occasion in the detection probability formula. We demonstrate that models with these modifications outperform alternative approaches, improve model goodness-of-fit, and overcome parameter convergence failures. We highlight its utility using 20 camera trapping datasets from 10 tropical forest landscapes in Southeast Asia and estimate four predator-prey relationships between tigers, clouded leopards, and muntjac and sambar deer. Tigers had a negative effect on muntjac abundance, providing support for top-down regulation, while clouded leopards had a positive effect on muntjac and sambar deer, likely driven by shared responses to unmodelled covariates like hunting. This Bayesian co-abundance modeling approach to quantify predator-prey relationships is widely applicable across species, ecosystems, and sampling approaches and may be useful in forecasting cascading impacts following widespread predator declines. Taken together, this approach facilitates a nuanced and mechanistic understanding of food-web ecology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zachary Amir
- School of Biological SciencesUniversity of QueenslandSt. LuciaQueenslandAustralia
- Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation ScienceUniversity of QueenslandSt. LuciaQueenslandAustralia
| | - Adia Sovie
- Department of Fisheries and WildlifeMichigan State UniversityEast LansingMichiganUSA
| | - Matthew Scott Luskin
- School of Biological SciencesUniversity of QueenslandSt. LuciaQueenslandAustralia
- Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation ScienceUniversity of QueenslandSt. LuciaQueenslandAustralia
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Bending the curve: Simple but massive conservation action leads to landscape-scale recovery of amphibians. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2022; 119:e2123070119. [PMID: 36215493 PMCID: PMC9586276 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2123070119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
The global decline of amphibians is part of the global freshwater biodiversity crisis. In human-dominated landscapes, amphibian population declines are driven by multiple stressors. A better understanding of the benefits of conservation action can contribute to the halting and reversal of population declines. Our analysis of 20 y of monitoring data shows that the large-scale construction of hundreds of new ponds in northern Switzerland has halted or even reversed declining trends for the majority of amphibian species, including multiple Red-Listed species undergoing declines at the national level. This conservation success suggests that increasing habitat availability benefits threatened amphibian species despite the continued presence of stressors known to negatively affect populations. Success stories are rare in conservation science, hindered also by the research-implementation gap, where scientific insights rarely inform practice and practical implementation is rarely evaluated scientifically. Amphibian population declines, driven by multiple stressors, are emblematic of the freshwater biodiversity crisis. Habitat creation is a straightforward conservation action that has been shown to locally benefit amphibians, as well as other taxa, but does it benefit entire amphibian communities at large spatial scales? Here, we evaluate a landscape-scale pond-construction program by fitting dynamic occupancy models to 20 y of monitoring data for 12 pond-breeding amphibian species in the Swiss state Aargau, a densely populated area of the Swiss lowlands with intensive land use. After decades of population declines, the number of occupied ponds increased statewide for 10 out of 12 species, while one species remained stable and one species further declined between 1999 and 2019. Despite regional differences, in 77% of all 43 regional metapopulations, the colonization and subsequent occupation of new ponds stabilized (14%) or increased (63%) metapopulation size. Likely mechanisms include increased habitat availability, restoration of habitat dynamics, and increased connectivity between ponds. Colonization probabilities reflected species-specific preferences for characteristics of ponds and their surroundings, which provides evidence-based information for future pond construction targeting specific species. The relatively simple but landscape-scale and persistent conservation action of constructing hundreds of new ponds halted declines and stabilized or increased the state-wide population size of all but one species, despite ongoing pressures from other stressors in a human-dominated landscape.
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European Plethodontid Salamanders on the Forest Floor: Testing for Age-Class Segregation and Habitat Selection. J HERPETOL 2022. [DOI: 10.1670/20-151] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
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Schmidt BR, BĂncilĂ RI, Hartel T, Grossenbacher K, Schaub M. Shifts in amphibian population dynamics in response to a change in the predator community. Ecosphere 2021. [DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.3528] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/07/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Benedikt R. Schmidt
- Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies University of Zurich Winterthurerstrasse 190 ZurichCH‐8057Switzerland
- Info fauna karch UniMail, Bâtiment G, Bellevaux 51 NeuchatelCH‐2000Switzerland
| | - Raluca I. BĂncilĂ
- “Emil Racoviţă” Institute of Speleology of Romanian Academy 13 Sptembrie Road, No. 13 Bucharest050711Romania
- Hungarian Department of Biology and Ecology and Center of Systems Biology, Biodiversity and Bioresources Babes‐Bolyai University Cluj‐Napoca Romania
| | - Tibor Hartel
- Hungarian Department of Biology and Ecology and Center of Systems Biology, Biodiversity and Bioresources Babes‐Bolyai University Cluj‐Napoca Romania
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Erős N, Maloș CV, Horváth C, Hartel T. Temporary pond loss as a result of pasture abandonment: exploring the social-ecological drivers and consequences for amphibians. J Nat Conserv 2020. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jnc.2020.125836] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
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Cruickshank SS, Bühler C, Schmidt BR. Quantifying data quality in a citizen science monitoring program: False negatives, false positives and occupancy trends. CONSERVATION SCIENCE AND PRACTICE 2019. [DOI: 10.1111/csp2.54] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/01/2023] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Sam S. Cruickshank
- Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental StudiesUniversity of Zurich Zürich Switzerland
| | | | - Benedikt R. Schmidt
- Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental StudiesUniversity of Zurich Zürich Switzerland
- info fauna karch, UniMail Neuchâtel Switzerland
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Moral RA, Hinde J, Demétrio CGB, Reigada C, Godoy WAC. Models for Jointly Estimating Abundances of Two Unmarked Site-Associated Species Subject to Imperfect Detection. JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL, BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS 2018. [DOI: 10.1007/s13253-017-0316-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
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Dufresnes C, Leuenberger J, Amrhein V, Bühler C, Thiébaud J, Bohnenstengel T, Dubey S. Invasion genetics of marsh frogs (Pelophylax ridibundus sensu lato) in Switzerland. Biol J Linn Soc Lond 2017. [DOI: 10.1093/biolinnean/blx140] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022]
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