tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64672060652456303732024-03-09T06:02:09.370-08:00Bears, Wolves And EcologyJonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.comBlogger155125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-9135014265912442152024-03-09T06:01:00.000-08:002024-03-09T06:01:17.809-08:00Bald eagles eat prairie dogs? <p><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">We all know that bald eagles like fish. Few of us, however, picture them soaring over grasslands seeking out prairie dog snacks. In a new paper from the</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify;"> </span><em style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Journal of Raptor Research</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">, lead author Courtney Duchardt and coauthors make the case that prairie dogs are an important resource for at least four species of raptors overwintering in the Southern Great Plains, bald eagles included. Their paper, titled “Overwintering Raptor Abundance and Community Composition in Relation to Prairie Dog Colonies in the Southern Great Plains,” explains the first broad scale look into the relationship between prairie dogs and their aerial predators, and illuminates an important trophic interaction with implications for raptor conservation through the lens of climate change.</span></b></p><div class="entry" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 23px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"> </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Grasslands across North America have shrunk significantly since the 1970’s, and for those remaining, habitat quality is a far cry from what it used to be. Since the ‘90’s, the total population of grassland birds across North America has decreased by 53%, illustrating the link between grassland health and bird abundance. Grassland raptors, with their large spatial requirements, likely suffer graver consequences from these reductions in habitat quality than other birds.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"> </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Duchardt, from the Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management at Oklahoma State University, and her colleagues, provide strong evidence that the stability and predictability of prairie dog colonies provides an important prey source for overwintering raptors across the Southwest Great Plains. Between 1998 and 2002 the research team conducted winter road surveys in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Their results were illuminating — nine raptor species occurred in tandem with prairie dog colonies. Notably, bald eagles and rough-legged hawks were included in this pattern, even though they don’t often encounter prairie dogs on their breeding grounds. However, as Duchardt points out, “prairie dogs are perfectly sized raptor-snacks,” so it makes sense that both species would see them as caloric jackpots.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"> </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Climate change could alter cycles of prairie dog reproduction. Already, variation in climate norms has increased the occurrence of plague among colonial breeding rodents like prairie dogs. If raptors feed on prairie dogs as often as this new study suggests, these shifts in prairie dog availability could push raptors to range further for food. The further they range, the more often they encounter dangers like wind turbines, which have been shown to negatively affect golden eagles and ferruginous hawks. This is of special concern for juvenile raptor which have a hard enough time during their first year of life without added stressors.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"> </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">An obvious next step is to prioritize protection of prairie dog colonies in areas where raptors are associating with them as a prey source. However, supporting prairie dogs for the sake of raptor health is politically tricky. “Prairie dogs are contentious and seen as pests in most parts of their range. However, their role as a keystone species helps to demonstrate that, even though there are conflicts, they are important,” says Duchardt. “To support raptors wintering in the Southern Plains, we need to consider prairie dog management.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"> </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Raptors are bioindicators, meaning they serve as proxies for habitat health, and they play a key part in naturally supporting ecosystem functioning as top predators on the landscape. Even with the reality of human-prairie dog conflict, there are pathways forward. “Ranching can be compatible with diverse wildlife communities because many of the wildlife co-evolved with bison, and sustainable ranching can replicate that,” says Duchardt. Using innovative management tools and educating the public on the importance of prairie dogs and raptors in these regions, Duchardt is optimistic that a middle ground can be found — one that allows bald eagles to munch on prairie dogs for years to come.</p></div>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-12560662361450641172024-01-23T09:31:00.000-08:002024-01-23T09:31:31.619-08:00Yellowstone - wolf pack v bison standoff<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://scontent-lga3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/420988856_18420523942063315_6846250699732423302_n.jpg?_nc_cat=104&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=3635dc&_nc_ohc=_p9yJBg4CyoAX80DVLz&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-2.xx&oh=00_AfB-aeWbWEF5jlge-9jNN1XQ3qMNbku9NK5QFWTPnD7fog&oe=65B53967" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="518" data-original-width="800" height="518" src="https://scontent-lga3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/420988856_18420523942063315_6846250699732423302_n.jpg?_nc_cat=104&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=3635dc&_nc_ohc=_p9yJBg4CyoAX80DVLz&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-2.xx&oh=00_AfB-aeWbWEF5jlge-9jNN1XQ3qMNbku9NK5QFWTPnD7fog&oe=65B53967" width="800" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Final results:<div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://scontent-lga3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/421167535_18420715315063315_2869411950423453220_n.jpg?_nc_cat=104&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=3635dc&_nc_ohc=C-b_USaGZjIAX_0QK3d&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-2.xx&oh=00_AfAtAwG5KIJxgNf0nsilK-ennj2HS-akmhly9MoPC0-s2g&oe=65B4984B" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="557" data-original-width="800" height="557" src="https://scontent-lga3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/421167535_18420715315063315_2869411950423453220_n.jpg?_nc_cat=104&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=3635dc&_nc_ohc=C-b_USaGZjIAX_0QK3d&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-2.xx&oh=00_AfAtAwG5KIJxgNf0nsilK-ennj2HS-akmhly9MoPC0-s2g&oe=65B4984B" width="800" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div></div>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-54523197709715651182024-01-23T09:01:00.000-08:002024-01-23T09:01:19.161-08:00Wolves and elk are (mostly) welcome back<p> </p><header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><h1 class="page_title" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2b2b; font-family: inherit; font-size: 34px; font-weight: 300; letter-spacing: -0.34px; line-height: 1.1; margin: 25px 0px 0px;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />In Poland and Germany’s Oder Delta region, survey shows</h1><p class="subtitle" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">Survey shows positive attitudes towards rewilding in the Oder Delta region, but finds locals’ feelings are mixed.</p><a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/releaseguidelines" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: red; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">Peer-Reviewed Publication</a><p class="meta_institute" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2b2b; margin: 2px 0px 20px; text-transform: uppercase; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">GERMAN CENTRE FOR INTEGRATIVE BIODIVERSITY RESEARCH (IDIV) HALLE-JENA-LEIPZIG</p><div class="toolbar hidden-print hidden-search" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><div class="col-xs-6" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: left; min-height: 1px; padding: 15px; position: relative; width: 305.656px;"><div class="addthis_inline_share_toolbox_pnaa" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div><div class="col-xs-6" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: left; min-height: 1px; padding: 15px; position: relative; width: 305.656px;"><div class="article-tools pull-right" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: right; margin-bottom: 20px;"><div class="addthis_inline_share_toolbox_62ef" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div></div></div></header><div class="entry" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px;"><figure class="thumbnail pull-right" style="border-radius: 0px; border: none; box-sizing: border-box; float: right; line-height: 1.42857; margin: 0px 0px 20px 34px; padding: 0px; position: relative; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; width: 288px; z-index: 9999;"><a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/1012510" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;"><div class="img-wrapper" style="background: rgb(241, 241, 241); border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: 288px; text-align: center; text-wrap: nowrap; width: 288px;"><img alt="Oder Delta" src="https://earimediaprodweb.azurewebsites.net/Api/v1/Multimedia/08acc795-867b-4ceb-b8e7-a83f7cd526a5/Rendition/low-res/Content/Public" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: auto; max-height: 272px; max-width: 272px; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" /> </div></a><figcaption class="caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">IMAGE: </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">THE ODER DELTA AREA COMPRISES DIVERSE NATURAL HABITATS AND IS PARTICULARLY SUITABLE FOR THE NATURAL COMEBACK OF WILDLIFE.</span></p><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;"></span><a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/1012510" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; font-weight: 600; text-decoration-line: none; text-transform: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">view <span class="no-break-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-wrap: nowrap;">more <span class="fa fa-angle-right" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-family: FontAwesome; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1; text-rendering: auto;"></span></span></a><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"></p><p class="credit" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #aaaaaa; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">CREDIT: SANDEEP SHARMA</p></figcaption></figure><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">An online survey conducted in Germany and Poland shows that large parts of the participants support the return of large carnivores and herbivores, such as wolves and elk, to the Oder Delta region, according to a study published in <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">People and Nature</em>. Presented with different rewilding scenarios, the majority of survey participants showed a preference for land management that leads to the comeback of nature to the most natural state possible. Locals, on the other hand, showed some reservations.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">In recent years, the concept of rewilding has captured the attention of conservationists, who see it as a promising and cost-effective tool to combat biodiversity loss and restore ecosystems. The Oder Delta area, which spans the northern border between Germany and Poland, is particularly suitable for the natural comeback of wildlife. It comprises diverse natural habitats, like riparian forests, standing- and flowing waters, open and semi-open inland dunes, and heathlands, and is surrounded by diverse landscapes of forests, rivers, and wetlands.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">To measure public sentiment towards rewilding in the Oder Delta, a team of researchers led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) carried out an online, choice experiment survey. Given the geographic position of the area across both Germany and Poland, the survey offered a unique opportunity to investigate differences in attitudes between the two countries. Approximately 1,000 respondents from each country were presented with different scenarios describing the ecological status of the Oder Delta in 2050 as a result of various management interventions. The scenarios included, for example, the conditions of rivers and forests and the presence of large animals such as elk, lynx, or wolves. Beyond the “status quo” option, an intensification of land use in the region, respondents were presented with two alternative scenarios with varying biodiversity benefits.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Importantly, only the status quo option came at no additional cost. The two alternative options were associated with tax payments to fund the necessary interventions, meaning that respondents were faced with a trade-off: an increase in nature benefits went hand in hand with an increase in taxes. “This allowed us to calculate the respondents’ willingness to pay for different management interventions in the Oder Delta region”, says lead author Rowan Dunn-Capper from iDiv and MLU. “This helps us understand broader preferences for rewilding”.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">Strong preferences for rewilding</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The study revealed a significant appetite for rewilding initiatives at the national scale, particularly for the presence of large animals, such as wolves, lynx, elk, and bison in the Oder Delta. Willingness to pay for scenarios in which large animal species were present was almost three times larger than for restoring the most natural landscape elements. “To find such preference was surprising given the often-negative portrayal of large animal species, notably the wolf, in the popular media”, says Dunn-Capper. “It suggests the public may be more welcoming of wildlife return than first thought”. This preference was also true for forests and agriculture: respondents in Germany as well as in Poland had a strong preference for the most natural rewilding levels with minimum human intervention on the ecosystem. Additionally, the fact that results for Germany and Poland were broadly comparable indicates that preferences for rewilding hold across political and cultural contexts.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">Locals are less enthusiastic about rewilding</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Survey participants living near the Oder Delta (within 100km)<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;"> </span>did not show the same appetite for rewilding initiatives. Local respondents showed a preference for large herbivores, such as elk and bison, but were less enthusiastic about the presence of large carnivores, like wolves. Similarly, local respondents showed contrasting preferences for certain rewilding interventions in rivers and agricultural landscapes compared to the national sample. For example, a significant share of local respondents were not willing to pay for scenarios in which flooding regimes were fully restored in the Oder Delta. “This underscores the intricacies of conservation planning and highlights the importance of local input to foster biodiversity democracy, this is the management of natural resources as a democratic process”, says senior author Professor Henrique Pereira, head of Biodiversity Conservation at MLU and iDiv. “Generally, our findings support rewilding as a novel ecosystem restoration approach that has public acceptance to become mainstream across Europe.”</p><div><br /></div></div>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-85486654856208460002024-01-11T06:54:00.000-08:002024-01-11T06:54:02.371-08:00Red deer populations in Europe: more influenced by humans than by wolves and other predators<p> </p><div class="entry" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 23px;"><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Alongside the occasional bison and elk, red deer are Europe's largest native wild animal. An international study led by wildlife ecologists from the University of Freiburg has now investigated the factors that affect the red deer population in a particular area. The researchers were able to show that the population density of the animals in Europe is primarily influenced by human hunting and land use and not by large predators such as wolves, lynx and brown bears. “While large carnivores are often considered key factors in controlling prey populations in undisturbed ecosystems, this is less visible in human-dominated landscapes. Our study illustrates that these interactions are context-dependent,” says Dr. <span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">Suzanne T. S. van Beeck Calkoen</span>, former PhD student at the Chair of Wildlife Ecology and Management at the University of Freiburg and first author of the study.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The researchers collected data on the population density of red deer at over 492 study sites in 28 European countries and analysed the influence of various factors such as habitat productivity, the presence of large carnivores, human activities, climatic variables and the protection status of the area. The evaluation of the data showed that human hunting reduced red deer density more than the presence of all large carnivores. Human land use, on the other hand, led to an increase in red deer density. In most cases, the presence of large carnivores had no statistically significant effect on the red deer population. Only when the three predators wolf, lynx and bear occurred together in one area did the number of red deer decrease. However, the study published in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14526" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Journal of Applied Ecology</em></a> did not investigate how the presence of predators affects the behavior of red deer.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">The return of the wolf</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />The study also sheds new light on the ongoing debate about the return of the wolf to Central Europe, notes Prof. Dr. <span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">Marco Heurich</span>, Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation Biology at the Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Freiburg and initiator of the study. “Our research shows that the return of a large carnivore such as the wolf alone does not have a major impact on the occurrence of red deer. This is because in Central Europe, human influences predominate both indirectly through interventions in the red deer’s habitat and directly through the killing of the animals.” In addition, the mortality rate of wolves in Central European landscapes is very high, mainly due to road traffic, which further limits their influence on prey populations. “However, we also found a high variability in red deer densities, which indicates that there may be specific situations in which large carnivores do have an impact. Investigating this will be the task of future studies,” states Heurich.</p><div><br /></div><ul style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 0px;"></ul></div>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-51667660796828969002023-12-13T08:13:00.000-08:002023-12-13T08:13:31.812-08:00Boosting beaver populations could have toxic consequences<p> </p><header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><h1 class="page_title" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2b2b; font-family: inherit; font-size: 34px; font-weight: 300; letter-spacing: -0.34px; line-height: 1.1; margin: 25px 0px 0px;"><br /></h1><div class="toolbar hidden-print hidden-search" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><div class="col-xs-6" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: left; min-height: 1px; padding: 15px; position: relative; width: 305.656px;"><div class="addthis_inline_share_toolbox_pnaa" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div><div class="col-xs-6" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: left; min-height: 1px; padding: 15px; position: relative; width: 305.656px;"><div class="article-tools pull-right" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: right; margin-bottom: 20px;"><div class="addthis_inline_share_toolbox_62ef" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div></div></div></header><div class="entry" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 23px;"><figure class="thumbnail pull-right" style="border-radius: 0px; border: none; box-sizing: border-box; float: right; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857; margin: 0px 0px 20px 34px; padding: 0px; position: relative; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; width: 288px; z-index: 9999;"><a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/1008982" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;"><div class="img-wrapper" style="background: rgb(241, 241, 241); border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: 288px; text-align: center; text-wrap: nowrap; width: 288px;"><img alt="Study suggests boosting beaver populations could have toxic consequences" src="https://earimediaprodweb.azurewebsites.net/Api/v1/Multimedia/2bd27ce1-677d-4b21-998d-6e321f6abf9a/Rendition/low-res/Content/Public" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: auto; max-height: 272px; max-width: 272px; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" /> </div></a><figcaption class="caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">IMAGE: </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">CLIFFORD ADAMCHAK'S BOAT WITH SAMPLING EQUIPMENT IN A BEAVER POND IN CRESTED BUTTE, COLORADO. </span></p><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;"></span><a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/1008982" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; font-weight: 600; text-decoration-line: none; text-transform: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">view <span class="no-break-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-wrap: nowrap;">more <span class="fa fa-angle-right" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-family: FontAwesome; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1; text-rendering: auto;"></span></span></a><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"></p><p class="credit" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #aaaaaa; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">CREDIT: CLIFFORD ADAMCHAK/CU BOULDER</p></figcaption></figure><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Beavers are influential animals in ecosystems. These dam-building, tree-chewing rodents change streamflow with their wooden barriers and create rich wetland habitats by diverting water into soils near rivers. They help conserve water and improve biodiversity. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">But a preliminary study by CU Boulder researchers suggests that beaver activities in the Western U.S. may exacerbate the spread of mercury-containing toxins in rivers and the surrounding habitats. Clifford Adamchak, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology presented the team’s findings Tuesday at the 2023 meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“In a world where beavers are increasingly being seen as an effective means to achieve various conservation and restoration goals, there is a possibility that we would see an abnormally large flush of methylmercury if we were to reintroduce beavers in the Western U.S. on a larger scale,” said Adamchak. “So it is important to better understand the impacts of their activities.” </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Beavers were once ubiquitous in North American streams before Europeans arrived in the region. The animal’s population then plummeted because of hunting and habitat loss. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Research has shown that beavers change the environment significantly, especially over longer timescales, and can provide various environmental benefits. By building dams and trapping water in their ponds, they help to replenish groundwater supplies and maintain wetland habitats for other species. Beaver ponds also help cool the water and mitigate the spread of wildfires, some increasingly significant benefits as climate change heats up the planet and intensifies wildfires in the Western U.S. As a result, several states, including California, Colorado and Oregon are exploring the idea of releasing more beavers to boost populations.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">But beaver ponds, because they lack oxygen, are a hot spot for bacteria that can generate mercury-containing neurotoxins. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“A stream that flows smoothly with nothing stopping it would have very different biological chemical and geological processes than a stream that has cascading beaver dams and ponds,” said Adamchak. “Beaver activities also impact the surrounding landscape, because the animals forage for woody vegetation on land.” </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Human activities, including coal burning and mining, emit mercury into the atmosphere. The mineral then gets into lakes and streams through rain and snow. In water, chemical reactions and certain bacteria transform the mineral into methylmercury, a toxic organic compound that can build up in organisms and travel down the food chain. For example, when a bear eats a fish containing methylmercury, the neurotoxin will accumulate in the bear’s body. Studies have shown consuming large amounts of methylmercury-containing food can lead to mercury poisoning and nervous system damage in humans. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">While atmospheric mercury levels in the Eastern U.S. have decreased over the years because of emission reduction efforts, the levels in the Western U.S., have remained constant or even slightly elevated. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Adamchak and the team set off to investigate whether increased beaver activities—partly due to reintroduction efforts—have led to a rise in methylmercury levels in the Western U.S. water. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Over the past summer, Adamchak visited several beaver ponds in California and Colorado, taking more than 300 samples of water and sediment from the ponds and their surrounding environment. He found that the methylmercury levels in the water of beaver ponds were very low, whereas the levels in the sediment— the soil and sand at the bottom and around the ponds—were very high. This suggests that the toxins might be accumulating in the sediment, rather than the water. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">In addition, Adamchak found that the sediment around the ponds, where water periodically submerges, had the highest methylmercury levels. This implies that beavers could spread the mercury-containing neurotoxin in the surrounding landscape. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The research is still in its early stages, and Adamchak said it’s unclear to what degree methylmercury can affect the wetland ecosystem as a result of beaver activities. But researchers are concerned that as beavers move around the river corridor across their lifespans and abandon old ponds, more vegetation may grow in areas with high methylmercury concentrations in the soil and get passed on to organisms that feed on them. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Fortunately, previous studies have shown beaver ponds tend to have higher methylmercury concentrations when they are new, and the levels decrease significantly with age. “That suggests beavers probably don’t have overwhelmingly negative effects on the ecosystem. But at this point it’s very hard to say if more beaver activities are good or bad in terms of mercury levels,” Adamchak said.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Adamchak planned to revisit these ponds next year to collect more data. He will also investigate if the age of the ponds or seasons influence the methylmercury levels in the ponds.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span style="font-size: 14px;"> </span></p></div>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-28202470685980226102023-11-17T05:37:00.000-08:002023-11-17T05:37:25.275-08:00The return of the grey wolf (Canis lupus) to Germany,<p><em style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">The return of the grey wolf (</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Canis lupus</span><em style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">) to Germany, which began 23 years ago in the region of Lusatia in Eastern Germany, is a process of great ecological and social significance. Therefore, a precise understanding of the recolonisation of the original habitat by the grey wolf and a reliable prediction of its future potential distribution are highly valuable. A detailed comparison of different approaches to spatial modelling using 20 years of distribution data now unravelled the complexity of the recolonisation process. A team led by scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) shows in a paper in the scientific journal </em><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Diversity and Distributions</span><em style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"> that grey wolf habitat selection changed from the early (when they cherry-pick the finest locations) to late phases of recolonisation (when they are much less selective) in a particular area. These results are a refinement of the team’s earlier habitat modelling from 2020, originally published by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation.</em></p><div class="entry" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 23px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Grey wolves prefer habitats with plenty of cover at a substantial distance from people, their settlements and roads. These preferences were demonstrated during their return to Germany in the 21st century, when they recolonised the habitat from which they had been extinguished 200 years earlier. Knowledge of such habitat requirements and associated preferences also allows predicting the further expansion of their current range in Germany in the future. In 2020, the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN), in collaboration with a scientific team from the Department of Ecological Dynamics at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW), published a <a href="https://www.izw-berlin.de/en/press-release/habitat-modelling-and-estimation-of-potential-territory-numbers-reveal-where-wolves-may-live-in-germany.html" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">study on modelling suitable habitats</a><u style="box-sizing: border-box;">.</u> In this study, the team calculated that there could potentially be space for around 700 to 1,400 wolf territories in Germany's natural areas. The scientists have now taken a closer look and tested a variety of approaches to spatio-temporal modelling with regard to different phases of recolonisation.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“There is reason to believe that the recolonisation of Germany by the grey wolf is not a so-called stationary process, but is characterised by changing framework conditions”, explains Prof Stephanie Kramer-Schadt, Head of the Department of Ecological Dynamics at the Leibniz-IZW. “Stationary processes in this case would mean that the wolves find the same or very similar environmental conditions in the regions into which they newly enter – and that they respond to the environmental conditions in the same way during all phases of the process.” Both assumptions appeared to be doubtful in the case of the recolonisation of Germany by the grey wolf. On the one hand, eastern Germany and the Rhine-Ruhr area in the west, for example, considerably differ in terms of the density of human infrastructure. On the other hand, wolves may show different or varying degrees of habitat preferences depending on whether they move in during the early, first phase or during the late, saturation phase of recolonisation.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“These questions are highly relevant for the quality of the predictions”, says first author Dr Aimara Planillo, a scientist at Kramer-Schadt's department at the IZW. “If models are developed on the basis of the specific environmental conditions of a particular region, they could underestimate the suitability of another, very different region to which such a model might be applied. At the same time, models created with data from early recolonisation phases may underestimate the suitability of habitats during the late phases – because the wolves during the early phase have a free choice to cherry-pick particular places and habitats and thus appear to be considerably more selective than they will be during the later phases. The reverse is also true: data from late recolonisation phases might suggest that wolves appear to be less selective, which is why the selectivity of their choice and use of habitats in newly colonised areas would probably be underestimated.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">This investigation was conducted by a team led by Dr Planillo and Prof Kramer-Schadt, in collaboration with scientists from LUPUS – the German Institute for Wolf Monitoring and Research –, the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development, the Technical Universities of Dresden and Berlin, the Humboldt University Berlin, the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation and the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna. They tested a variety of modern modelling methods and algorithms with data from more than 20 years of wolf monitoring in Germany with particular attention to the potential pitfalls arising from the actual dynamics of the recolonization process. They developed the models on the basis of a combination of radio telemetry and observation data and tested how well they could predict subsequent phases of the colonisation process. “The new models confirmed our previous work in two ways”, conclude Planillo and Kramer-Schadt. “On the one hand, our projections from 2020 were proven to be largely accurate. Secondly, the sometimes significant differences to model forecasts of the various spatial phases of the process show that it is indeed non-stationary”, say the authors. “When recolonising an area, wolves always secure the best habitats first. It therefore appears that they are considerably more sensitive to environmental variables. Neighbouring second class sites are colonised just as reliably in later phases, as we were able to demonstrate in many regions of eastern Germany.” The team was thus able to validate their predictions and refine them in a more differentiated manner. “Spatio-temporal projections of habitats of expanding species should be carried out with great caution”, they conclude.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The most important factors for habitats to be suitable for wolves are close proximity to forests or cover-rich areas and a large distance from roads. The best habitats for wolves are found in the north and northeast as well as in the south of Germany, whereas habitats of lower quality tend to be found in the west. In the south of Bavaria and in some forest areas of central Germany (in the Harz Mountains as well as in the Spessart, Odenwald and Rhön), larger habitats of high quality are still unoccupied by wolves at the time the team ran the analysis. It is likely that the first wolves to arrive there will first settle in prime locations – which by now has already happened according to the most recent data – and colonise medium-quality locations over time. “With regards to our latest modelling and similar experiences from other European countries, where habitats of lower quality are also used permanently when wolf densities are high, previous habitat modelling tends to be too conservative”, says Kramer-Schadt. “However, they provide a good spatial forecast for the initial colonisation of new habitats.”</p><hr class="hidden-xs hidden-sm" style="border-bottom: 0px; border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top-style: solid; box-sizing: content-box; height: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px;" /><div class="featured_image" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; position: relative;"><div class="details" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><div class="well" style="background: none; border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">JOURNAL</h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 5px 0px 0px;">Diversity and Distributions</p></div><div class="well" style="background: none; border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">DOI</h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 5px 0px 0px;"><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ddi.13789" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;" target="_blank">10.1111/ddi.13789 <span class="fa fa-sign-out" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-family: FontAwesome; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 1; text-rendering: auto;"></span></a></p></div></div></div></div>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-60198537590865513642023-11-01T04:39:00.001-07:002023-11-01T04:39:04.498-07:00Wolves hunting and killing sea otters and harbor seals on Alaska’s Katmai coast<p><br /></p><header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/releaseguidelines" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: red; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">Peer-Reviewed Publication</a><p class="meta_institute" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2b2b; margin: 2px 0px 20px; text-transform: uppercase; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY</p><div class="toolbar hidden-print hidden-search" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><div class="col-xs-6" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: left; min-height: 1px; padding: 15px; position: relative; width: 305.656px;"><div class="addthis_inline_share_toolbox_pnaa" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div><div class="col-xs-6" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: left; min-height: 1px; padding: 15px; position: relative; width: 305.656px;"><div class="article-tools pull-right" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: right; margin-bottom: 20px;"><div class="addthis_inline_share_toolbox_62ef" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div></div></div></header><div class="entry" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 23px;"><figure class="thumbnail pull-right" style="border-radius: 0px; border: none; box-sizing: border-box; float: right; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857; margin: 0px 0px 20px 34px; padding: 0px; position: relative; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; width: 288px; z-index: 9999;"><a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/1003855" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;"><div class="img-wrapper" style="background: rgb(241, 241, 241); border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: 288px; text-align: center; text-wrap: nowrap; width: 288px;"><img alt="Wolf and otter" src="https://earimediaprodweb.azurewebsites.net/Api/v1/Multimedia/9d60b1ca-ea6a-450e-8b66-c7cad28f391d/Rendition/low-res/Content/Public" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: auto; max-height: 272px; max-width: 272px; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" /> </div></a><figcaption class="caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">IMAGE: </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">WOLF WITH A SEA OTTER ON ALASKA'S KATMAI COAST.</span></p><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;"></span><a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/1003855" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; font-weight: 600; text-decoration-line: none; text-transform: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">view <span class="no-break-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-wrap: nowrap;">more <span class="fa fa-angle-right" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-family: FontAwesome; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1; text-rendering: auto;"></span></span></a><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"></p><p class="credit" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #aaaaaa; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">CREDIT: KELSEY GRIFFIN</p></figcaption></figure><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">CORVALLIS, Ore. – </span>Firsthand observations of a wolf hunting and killing a harbor seal and a group of wolves hunting and consuming a sea otter on Alaska’s Katmai coast have led scientists to reconsider assumptions about wolf hunting behavior.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Wolves have previously been observed consuming sea otter carcasses, but how they obtain these and the frequency of scavenging versus hunting marine prey is largely unknown. Scientists at Oregon State University, the National Park Service and Alaska Department of Fish and Game are beginning to change that with a <a href="https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecy.4185" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">paper just published</a> in <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Ecology</em>.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">In the paper, they describe several incidents they observed involving wolves and marine mammals in Katmai National Park that they believe haven’t been previously documented:</p><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">In 2016 the researchers witnessed a male wolf hunt and kill a harbor seal. The wolf was positioned near the mouth of a creek when it charged into the water, grabbing the tail of the harbor seal. The wolf continued to tear into the flesh of the seal’s tail and after an approximate 30-minute struggle, the seal appeared to tire, straining to lift its head above water. The wolf dragged the seal onto the exposed sandbar and began to tear into the existing wound and consume the tail.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">On three separate days in 2016, 2018 and 2019 the scientists and others observed wolves carrying sea otter carcasses.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">In 2021, the researchers watched three wolves hunt and eat an adult sea otter on an island during a low tide. They watched the wolves travel to the island, then lost sight of them for about one minute and then saw them reappear carrying a limp sea otter. They fed on the carcass for about 60 minutes. Once the wolves left, the researchers examined the kill site and found an area of concentrated blood where the sea otter was likely killed. The presence of blood indicates the sea otter had been alive when ambushed by the wolves, as opposed to being scavenged, the researchers note. </li></ul><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“This is really exciting documentation of behaviors we believe have never been directly observed by scientists,” said Ellen Dymit, a doctoral student at Oregon State. “It kind of forces us to reconsider the assumptions that underlie a lot of our management decisions and modeling around wolf populations and populations of their prey, which often assume that wolves depend on ungulates, like moose and elk.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The research project originated in 2016 when Kelsey Griffin, a National Park Service biologist, and some of her colleagues stopped for lunch on the beach during a day of conducting marine debris and bird mortality surveys at Katmai National Park.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“Seemingly out of nowhere, we are sitting there, we just see this white wolf carrying an otter just trotting by,” Griffin said. “What? I was just blown away. I have never seen anything like that before.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“Then I was asking my co-workers: ‘Has anyone seen this before? Do wolves often eat sea otters?’ I was just asking a bunch of questions about the wolves and it just seemed like there was not a whole lot of information about them. That was the initial observation. I just got lucky. Wolves on the Katmai coast have never been studied and our research highlights the unique role wolves play in nearshore ecosystems in Alaska” </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Griffin connected with Gretchen Roffler, a biologist with Alaska Department of Fish and Game, who introduced Griffin to Taal Levi, a professor at Oregon State and Dymit’s advisor.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The project builds on work by Roffler, Levi and others on wolves and sea otters on Pleasant Island, an island landscape adjacent to Glacier Bay about 40 miles west of Juneau and hundreds of miles east of Katmai across the Gulf of Alaska.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">In a paper published earlier this year, <a href="https://today.oregonstate.edu/news/wolves-eliminate-deer-alaskan-island-then-quickly-shift-eating-sea-otters-research-finds" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">they found</a> wolves on Pleasant Island caused a deer population to plummet and switched to primarily eating sea otters in just a few years. They believe this is the first case of sea otters becoming the primary food source for a land-based predator.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Future papers will include analysis of wolves and sea otters from Lake Clark National Park, Glacier Bay National Park and Kenai Fjords National Park, in addition to Katmai. The research team plans to look at how sea otter density impacts the diets of wolves and variations of wolf diet on a pack level versus and individual level.</p></div>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-63947358452921494232023-09-21T06:43:00.006-07:002023-09-21T06:43:50.187-07:00Study reveals the most important considerations for grizzly bear conservation<p> </p><header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><h1 class="page_title" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2b2b; font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.34px; line-height: 1.1; margin: 25px 0px 0px;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">Humans negatively impact the health of grizzly bear populations through top-down influences like direct mortality associated with forestry roads (from conflict or illegal killings) and displacement from high quality habitats, and through bottom-up influences like reducing availability of food resources. Research published in</span><span style="color: #333333;"> </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333;"><a href="https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/19385455" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;" target="_blank">Wildlife Monographs</a></em><span style="color: #333333;"> </span><span style="color: #333333;">reveals the relationship between these forces, informing a strategic conservation program.</span></span></h1></header><div class="entry" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 23px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Investigators radio-collared and followed numerous grizzly bears over multiple years in southeastern British Columbia. They found an interesting interplay between the most important bottom-up factor, huckleberry patches, and mortality risk from forestry roads (road density and the amount of secure habitat away from roads). Top-down influences were not only associated with mortality risk, but they limited contributions of critical food resources, reducing female grizzly fitness and density, in essence having a similar effect as habitat loss. This doubly negative effect likely contributes to the ubiquitous detriment that high forestry road density confers to grizzly bear populations in western North America.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The findings highlight the importance of considering both bottom-up and top-down influences affecting wildlife populations. “The securing of important food resources to make them accessible to bears is accomplished through some degree of restriction of human access,” said lead author Michael Proctor, PhD, of Birchdale Ecological Ltd. “Our results suggest that benefits of critical bear foods are not satisfactorily realized unless human access to nearby roads is reduced.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">URL upon publication: </span><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wmon.1078?utm_medium=email&utm_source=publicity&utm_content=WRH_9_18_23&utm_term=WMON" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;" target="_blank">https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wmon.1078</a></p></div>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-31953316208119706962023-08-30T14:42:00.005-07:002023-08-30T14:42:52.815-07:00Broken by bison, aspen saplings having a tough time in northern Yellowstone<p> </p><header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="toolbar hidden-print hidden-search" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><div class="col-xs-6" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: left; min-height: 1px; padding: 15px; position: relative; width: 305.656px;"><div class="addthis_inline_share_toolbox_pnaa" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div><div class="col-xs-6" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: left; min-height: 1px; padding: 15px; position: relative; width: 305.656px;"><div class="article-tools pull-right" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: right; margin-bottom: 20px;"><div class="addthis_inline_share_toolbox_62ef" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div></div></div></header><div class="entry" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 23px;"><figure class="thumbnail pull-right" style="border-radius: 0px; border: none; box-sizing: border-box; float: right; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857; margin: 0px 0px 20px 34px; padding: 0px; position: relative; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; width: 288px; z-index: 9999;"><a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/996689" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;"><div class="img-wrapper" style="background: rgb(241, 241, 241); border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: 288px; text-align: center; text-wrap: nowrap; width: 288px;"><img alt="A bison bull breaking aspen saplings and eating aspen in the Lamar Valley in northern Yellowstone National Park. Overstory aspen trees have died and fallen to the ground as seen in the photo, and tall saplings have grown since the early 2000s. Broken stem" src="https://earimediaprodweb.azurewebsites.net/Api/v1/Multimedia/28673cb3-dd6d-46a6-9140-6a37350a9221/Rendition/low-res/Content/Public" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: auto; max-height: 272px; max-width: 272px; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" /> </div></a><figcaption class="caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">IMAGE: A BISON BULL BREAKING ASPEN SAPLINGS AND EATING ASPEN IN THE LAMAR VALLEY IN NORTHERN YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. OVERSTORY ASPEN TREES HAVE DIED AND FALLEN TO THE GROUND AS SEEN IN THE PHOTO, AND TALL SAPLINGS HAVE GROWN SINCE THE EARLY 2000S. BROKEN STEMS OF ASPEN SAPLINGS ARE VISIBLE IN THE FOREGROUND, AND SILHOUETTED AGAINST THE BODY OF THE BISON (PHOTO BY LUKE PAINTER, 2020). THESE BROKEN STUMPS SHOW THAT SAPLINGS RECENTLY COVERED MUCH MORE OF THE STAND AREA, BUT THEY HAVE BEEN BROKEN AND KILLED BY BISON, AND BISON CONTINUE TO BREAK THE REMAINING SAPLINGS. THESE SAPLINGS WERE TALLER THAN 4 METERS, NO LONGER VULNERABLE TO SUPPRESSION BY ELK OR BISON EATING THEIR TOP BRANCHES, BUT BISON BROKE THEM OFF AT A LOW HEIGHT.</span> <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/996689" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; font-weight: 600; text-decoration-line: none; text-transform: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">view <span class="no-break-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-wrap: nowrap;">more <span class="fa fa-angle-right" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-family: FontAwesome; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1; text-rendering: auto;"></span></span></a></p><p class="credit" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #aaaaaa; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">CREDIT: A BISON BULL BREAKING ASPEN SAPLINGS AND EATING ASPEN IN THE LAMAR VALLEY IN NORTHERN YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. OVERSTORY ASPEN TREES HAVE DIED AND FALLEN TO THE GROUND AS SEEN IN THE PHOTO, AND TALL SAPLINGS HAVE GROWN SINCE THE EARLY 2000S. BROKEN STEMS OF ASPEN SAPLINGS ARE VISIBLE IN THE FOREGROUND, AND SILHOUETTED AGAINST THE BODY OF THE BISON (PHOTO BY LUKE PAINTER, 2020). THESE BROKEN STUMPS SHOW THAT SAPLINGS RECENTLY COVERED MUCH MORE OF THE STAND AREA, BUT THEY HAVE BEEN BROKEN AND KILLED BY BISON, AND BISON CONTINUE TO BREAK THE REMAINING SAPLINGS. THESE SAPLINGS WERE TALLER THAN 4 METERS, NO LONGER VULNERABLE TO SUPPRESSION BY ELK OR BISON EATING THEIR TOP BRANCHES, BUT BISON BROKE THEM OFF AT A LOW HEIGHT.</p></figcaption></figure><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">CORVALLIS, Ore. – In northern Yellowstone National Park, saplings of quaking aspen, an ecologically important tree in the American West, are being broken by a historically large bison herd, affecting the comeback of aspen from decades of over-browsing by elk.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Findings of the research led by Luke Painter of Oregon State University were published today in <em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/20457758/current?utm_source=google&utm_medium=paidsearch&utm_campaign=R3MR425&utm_content=LifeSciences&gclid=Cj0KCQjwi7GnBhDXARIsAFLvH4myw_aJ7jxb0NkgvhqdfyfmFiYrPNG9gJpVOqm1tzGt-EMND2jc-qAaAjlbEALw_wcB" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">Ecology and Evolution</a></em>.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The study comes five years after Painter, who teaches ecology and conservation in the OSU College of Agricultural Sciences, <a href="https://today.oregonstate.edu/news/aspen-making-comeback-and-around-yellowstone-national-park-because-predators" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">published</a> a paper in Ecosphere showing that wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone had been a catalyst for aspen recovery both outside and inside park boundaries.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“I’ve studied the response of aspen in northern Yellowstone to the reduction in elk after the wolves were brought back and found that during this time, bison increased and have begun to affect aspen,” Painter said. “Now we’re showing strong evidence of a previously unreported behavior of bison bulls breaking aspen saplings.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The saplings were tall enough to escape most browsing by elk and thus likely to grow into trees, but bison broke them off at a low height, he said. Other saplings were killed when bison scraped off the bark with their horns.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Quaking aspen largely reproduces by root sprouts, a process known as suckering, and stands of aspen are often a single organism connected by the trees’ common root system. Fire stimulates aspen reproduction from both roots and seeds.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">For much of the 20th century, Painter said, aspen sprouts were unable to grow into trees because they were eaten by elk during winter. But at the end of the century, when wolves were reintroduced and the numbers of other large predators such as grizzly bears and cougars increased, elk numbers in the northern part of Yellowstone went down, bringing relief to the aspen.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“Some young aspen began growing into saplings – young trees taller than 2 meters – which was an indication they were no longer being consumed by elk and were likely to grow into mature trees,” Painter said. “It was a trophic cascade that changed the Yellowstone ecosystem, creating conditions that could bring it closer to what it was historically, with more aspen, willow and beaver, which depend on these plants. But the tremendous increase in bison over the last two decades has added a new turn to the story.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Bison have long been known to have strong effects on their environment, Painter said. Among those is removing and suppressing shrubs and trees by eating, trampling and breaking them – and as bison numbers have greatly risen in northern Yellowstone in the last two decades, their effects on plants have also increased.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">In places where bison are present in large numbers, like Yellowstone’s iconic Lamar Valley, they are hindering some aspen stands from replacing their dying trees, he said.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The Yellowstone bison herd is divided into central and northern herds, and this study was in the range of the northern herd. The northern herd’s numbers were generally less than 1,000 until 2005 and then increased, for reasons that aren’t fully understood, to about 4,000 during the last decade, Painter said.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Painter and OSU College of Forestry collaborators Robert Beschta and William Ripple examined a random sampling of plots in 87 randomly selected aspen stands, and 18% of saplings had been broken. They may resprout from their base, but the sapling height has been lost and new sprouts are vulnerable to being eaten by bison or other herbivores, the researchers note.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Multiple lines of evidence support attributing the breakage to bison, Painter said.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“Most broken saplings were in areas of high bison density and low elk density, and they were broken in summer when elk wouldn’t have been foraging on them,” he said. “Plus we directly observed bison breaking aspen saplings. The purpose of the behavior doesn’t seem to be about accessing food, and we observed only bulls engaging in this behavior, so it may be related to displays of aggression.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Painter noted that Yellowstone bison are managed under an agreement with the state of Montana that requires them to remain in or very near the park – those that stray are killed, captured or hazed back into the park, in large part because they can carry bacteria that cause brucellosis, a threat to Montana’s cattle industry.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Elk also carry brucellosis and have passed it to cattle, but the same restrictions are not applied to them. Thus, unlike other wildlife bison are not allowed to disperse to other areas as their numbers and density increase.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The conservation of bison in Yellowstone, whose numbers plummeted nationally from over-hunting in the 1800s, is a big success story, Painter noted – and so is the recovery of aspen and other deciduous woody plants that began when the park’s large predators made their comeback.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“Thus, one important conservation goal is affecting another important conservation goal,” he said. “Researchers are only beginning to understand how these conservation goals have overlapped and affected each other. We reported a piece of this complex puzzle, describing and quantifying one way that bison shape their habitat by suppressing trees.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The study was supported in part by the National Science Foundation and the Ecosystem Restoration Research Fund of the Oregon State University Foundation.</p><hr class="hidden-xs hidden-sm" style="border-bottom: 0px; border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top-style: solid; box-sizing: content-box; font-size: 14px; height: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px;" /><div class="featured_image" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; position: relative;"><div class="details" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><div class="well" style="background: none; border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">JOURNAL</h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 5px 0px 0px;">Ecology and Evolution</p></div><div class="well" style="background: none; border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">DOI</h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 5px 0px 0px;"><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.10369" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;" target="_blank">10.1002/ece3.10369 <span class="fa fa-sign-out" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-family: FontAwesome; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 1; text-rendering: auto;"></span></a></p></div></div></div></div>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-21757760562298808062023-08-18T05:38:00.005-07:002023-08-18T05:38:59.798-07:00Gray wolf recovery is a success—is that a problem?<p> </p><header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/releaseguidelines" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: red; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">Peer-Reviewed Publication</a><p class="meta_institute" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2b2b; font-size: 14px; margin: 2px 0px 20px; text-transform: uppercase; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES</p><div class="toolbar hidden-print hidden-search" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><div class="col-xs-6" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: left; font-size: 14px; min-height: 1px; padding: 15px; position: relative; width: 305.656px;"><div class="addthis_inline_share_toolbox_pnaa" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div><div class="col-xs-6" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: left; min-height: 1px; padding: 15px; position: relative; width: 305.656px;"><div class="article-tools pull-right" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: right; margin-bottom: 20px;"><div class="addthis_inline_share_toolbox_62ef" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div></div></div></header><div class="entry" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 23px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Over the past 30 years, efforts to recover gray wolf populations in the United States have been broadly successful, with many regions now sporting robust populations of the charismatic carnivore. <a href="https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/biosci/biad053" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">Writing in <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">BioScience</em></a>, wolf experts David E. Ausband and L. David Mech describe the conservation landscape and also the obstacles that wolves face as their populations expand into their historical ranges.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"> "Remarkable wolf conservation success yields remarkable challenges," say the authors, as 6000 wolves now occupy habitat across 11 states. These growing populations now face significant threats as they attempt to colonize human-dominated areas, among them "fragmented habitats and barriers to dispersal, as well as increased encounters with humans, pets, and livestock."</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"> In response to those concerned about wolves’ potential impacts to prey populations and domestic livestock production, many jurisdictions have ramped up wolf efforts. For instance, in Wisconsin, "the legislature requires a public hunting or trapping season whenever wolves are delisted from the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s (USFWS) list of Endangered species." In contrast, wolves are seen as desirable in other areas, such as Colorado, where voters recently passed a ballot initiative to reintroduce them in the state. The authors caution that such pro-reintroduction initiatives, which may seem initially promising for wolves, could have the unintended consequence of setting precedent for laws barring reintroduction and thus complicate management. An uncertain regulatory regime, say Ausband and Mech, could cause major fluctuations in wolf populations, with dire consequences for conservation efforts.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"> The answer to this quandary, the authors suggest, is thoughtful management that carefully considers the needs of diverse stakeholders: "Future wolf conservation in the United States will be affected by the ability of managers to predict colonization and dispersal dynamics, to reduce hybridization and disease transmission, to mitigate and deter wolf–livestock conflicts, to harvest wolves sustainably while satisfying diverse stakeholders, to avert a reduction in tolerance for wolves due to a disinterest in nature, and to engage diverse stakeholders in wolf conservation to avoid management by ballot initiative or legislative and judicial decrees." Only through such science-informed management, argue Ausband and Mech, can the present success of wolf conservation be built on in the future.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">***</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">David E. Ausband is affiliated with the US Geological Survey’s Idaho Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, at the University of Idaho, in Moscow, Idaho, and L. David Mech is affiliated with the US Geological Survey’s Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, in Jamestown, North Dakota, and with the University of Minnesota in St. Paul.</p><hr class="hidden-xs hidden-sm" style="border-bottom: 0px; border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top-style: solid; box-sizing: content-box; font-size: 14px; height: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px;" /><div class="featured_image" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; position: relative;"><div class="details" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><div class="well" style="background: none; border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">JOURNAL</h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 5px 0px 0px;">BioScience</p></div><div class="well" style="background: none; border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">DOI</h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 5px 0px 0px;"><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biad053" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;" target="_blank">10.1093/biosci/biad053 <span class="fa fa-sign-out" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-family: FontAwesome; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 1; text-rendering: auto;"></span></a></p></div></div></div></div>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-76410699210233170102023-03-02T14:34:00.007-08:002023-03-02T14:34:42.295-08:00Moose can play a big role in global warming <p><br /></p><header style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/releaseguidelines" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: red; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">Peer-Reviewed Publication</a><p class="meta_institute" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2b2b; margin: 2px 0px 20px; text-transform: uppercase; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;"><span style="font-size: small;">NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY</span></p><div class="toolbar hidden-print hidden-search" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><div class="col-xs-6" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: left; min-height: 1px; padding: 15px; position: relative; width: 305.656px;"><div class="addthis_inline_share_toolbox_pnaa" data-description="Climate researchers have long known that large animals, like moose, could play a role in how much the Earth will warm due to climate change. 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box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; display: inline-block; height: 32px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0px 7.5px 0px 2.5px; vertical-align: middle;">Email App</span></a></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></header><div class="entry" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 23px;"><figure class="thumbnail pull-right" style="background-color: white; border-radius: 0px; border: none; box-sizing: border-box; float: right; line-height: 1.42857; margin: 0px 0px 20px 34px; padding: 0px; position: relative; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; width: 288px; z-index: 9999;"><a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/976308" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;"><div class="img-wrapper" style="background: rgb(241, 241, 241); border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: 288px; text-align: center; white-space: nowrap; width: 288px;"><span style="font-size: small;"><img alt="Browsing by moose can strongly affect carbon cycling" src="https://earimediaprodweb.azurewebsites.net/Api/v1/Multimedia/cb45f6c4-15b5-41f3-bc36-87f065de1282/Rendition/low-res/Content/Public" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: auto; max-height: 272px; max-width: 272px; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" /> </span></div></a><figcaption class="caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">IMAGE: THIS BIG BOY CAN BE RESPONSIBLE FOR HUGE AMOUNTS OF CARBON EMISSIONS, SIMPLY BY EATING YOUNG VEGETATION THAT SPROUTS AFTER A CLEARCUT AND THAT IF LEFT ALONE, WOULD GROW UP AND STORE CARBON.</span> <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/976308" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; font-weight: 600; text-decoration-line: none; text-transform: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">view <span class="no-break-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; white-space: nowrap;">more <span class="fa fa-angle-right" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-family: FontAwesome; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1; text-rendering: auto;"></span></span></a></span></p><p class="credit" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #aaaaaa; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: small;">CREDIT: PHOTO: ENDRE GRÜNER OFSTAD</span></p></figcaption></figure><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">One of the biggest potential single sources of carbon emissions from wooded parts of Norway has four legs, weighs as much as 400-550 kg and has antlers.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">That’s right — moose can reduce carbon storage in clearcut sites equivalent to as much as 60 per cent of the annual fossil fuel carbon emissions from a region, a new study shows.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“Moose are an ecosystem engineer in the forest ecosystem, and strongly impact everything from the species composition and nutrient availability in the forest,” said Gunnar Austrheim, an ecologist at the NTNU University Museum who was one of the study’s co-authors. “A grown animal can eat 50 kilograms of biomass each day during summer.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">That consumption represents roughly 10 per cent of what the Norwegian forest industry itself harvests, he said.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">And therein lies the reason why moose can be responsible for such a large additional amount of carbon emissions, said Francesco Cherubini, director of NTNU’s Industrial Ecology (IndEcol) Programme, and co-author of the paper.</p><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 20px;"><span style="font-size: small;">Moose influence vegetation growth and more</span></h2><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Moose like to eat young deciduous trees, like birch, rowan and willow. So the young saplings that would normally sprout in the forest after a timber company clearcuts an area never get the chance to grow.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">When saplings grow into mature trees, they bind up CO<span style="bottom: -0.25em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">2</span> in their trunks, leaves and roots. Moose essentially gobble up that possible source of carbon storage.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“It was really a surprise to see how much moose can influence vegetation growth, the carbon cycle and the climate system,” said Xiangping Hu, a researcher at IndEcol and co-author of the study.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Scientists have known that browsing by large animals like moose could be an unaccounted-for source of additional carbon emissions, but there are very few studies with actual numbers to say precisely how much, Hu said.</p><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 20px;"><span style="font-size: small;">Filling in the unknowns in climate modelling</span></h2><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Researchers use computer models to try to predict future climate scenarios, based on current and expected emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">That’s basically the information we get from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Most recently, the IPCC said humanity is on track to raise the Earth’s average temperate by 2.4 C, which is quite a bit higher than the 1.5 C goal that scientists agree we should aim for.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The challenge is that climate modelling is imperfect. It’s getting better, but there are areas where researchers simply don’t have enough information yet.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">They know there are factors that should be in their climate models, but they simply don’t have enough data to include those factors in a realistic way.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The effects of large animals are one of those factors, Cherubini said.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“One of the biggest unknowns that we have in our understanding of the climate system and the carbon cycle is potentially the effect of larger animals, and how they interact with carbon storage in vegetation,” he said.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“This study gave us a great opportunity to quantify this effect,” he said. “We have some numbers that we can relate to the regional carbon budget, and which actually show the importance of large animals like the moose.”</p><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 20px;"><span style="font-size: small;">Good for the forest industry, maybe not so good for the climate</span></h2><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The researchers were able to discover the importance of moose on climate as a result of a different, but related study that began in 2008.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">At that time, researchers at NTNU and NINA ( the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research) wanted to know what effect moose had on the forest ecosystem after an area had been clearcut. They looked at vegetation <a href="https://www.ntnu.edu/museum/sustherb" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">regrowth, species diversity and soil nutrient dynamics.</a> Clearcutting is a process where essentially all trees are harvested from an area.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">So the researchers set up 47 paired plots in areas that had been clearcut in the previous three years. One of the plot pairs was fenced off so that moose couldn’t browse on the tasty new saplings that naturally spring up after an area has been cut.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The second, nearby plot pair, was open to moose but marked so that researchers could go back year after year to see what happened to tree regrowth and other ecosystem metrics as moose feasted on the vegetation.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">What they found was that moose were doing Norway’s forest industry a huge favour, Cherubini said.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“So the forest industry prefers coniferous species, they prefer pine, they prefer spruce. So moose to some extent, are helping them because they’re reducing competition,” by thinning out the deciduous trees and partly pine, leaving the spruce, he said.</p><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 20px;"><span style="font-size: small;">Win for the climate, biodiversity and forest management?</span></h2><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The researchers realized they could revisit the plots to study effects on carbon emissions by calculating the differences in aboveground carbon content between browsed and unbrowsed plots.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">That enabled them to see potential additional carbon emissions that moose caused by eating deciduous saplings.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Birch and other highly selected deciduous species such as rowan, willow and aspen may also help contribute to the biodiversity of an area, Austrheim said, which moose also affect by removing those species.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">So while moose were relatively good for the forest industry, they aren’t necessarily that good for the climate or biodiversity.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">But there’s good news.</p><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 20px;"><span style="font-size: small;">Finding a balance</span></h2><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Almost all of Norway’s productive forests are harvested using clearcuts.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“These clearcuts provide a lot of good food for moose,” Austrheim said. Moose are also very heavily managed in Norway, he said.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“We don’t only regulate the amount of animals, we very carefully regulate the proportion of females, males and calves. So there’s a stronger management for moose than for most livestock in Norway,” he said.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">That means it should be possible to find the right balance between moose numbers and how forested lands are managed. That, in turn, could make it possible to limit excess carbon emissions, boost biodiversity and increase forest productivity, the researchers said.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“I think as we get more of an understanding of how all these different things are interrelated, land managers could come up with an optimal plan,” Cherubini said. “That could be a much needed win-win solution for climate, for biodiversity and for timber value.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">Reference:</span> Salisbury, J., Hu, X., Speed, J. D. M., Iordan, C. M., Austrheim, G., & Cherubini, F. (2023). Net climate effects of moose browsing in early successional boreal forests by integrating carbon and albedo dynamics. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 128, e2022JG007279. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JG007279" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;" target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JG007279</a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"> </p><hr class="hidden-xs hidden-sm" style="border-bottom: 0px; border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top-style: solid; box-sizing: content-box; font-size: 14px; height: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px;" /><div class="featured_image" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; position: relative;"><div class="details" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><div class="well" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">JOURNAL</h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 5px 0px 0px;">Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences</p></div><div class="well" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">DOI</h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 5px 0px 0px;"><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2022JG007279" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;" target="_blank">10.1029/2022JG007279 <span class="fa fa-sign-out" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-family: FontAwesome; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1; text-rendering: auto;"></span></a></p></div><div class="well" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"></div></div></div></div>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-5009949143832802592023-02-17T15:26:00.003-08:002023-02-17T15:26:22.106-08:00New study identifies key success factors for large carnivore rewilding efforts<header style="box-sizing: border-box;"><h1 class="page_title" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2b2b; font-family: inherit; font-size: 34px; font-weight: 300; letter-spacing: -0.34px; line-height: 1.1; margin: 25px 0px 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></h1></header><div class="entry" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px;"><ul style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">The findings are based on data from almost 300 relocations of large carnivores, from wolves to bears;</span></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">Relocations showed a high overall success rate, and a significant increase over recent years;</span></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">Key factors that boosted survival of relocated animals included using younger animals, using wild-born animals, and including an acclimatisation period;</span></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">Low mating success of relocated animals indicates ongoing challenges for rewilding programmes.</span></li></ul><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">New research published today has identified the top factors that determine whether efforts to relocate large carnivores to different areas are successful or not. The findings could support global rewilding efforts, from lynx reintroductions in the UK to efforts to restore logged tropical forests.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"> As apex predators, large carnivores play crucial roles in ecosystems, however their numbers have plummeted over recent decades. Relocating large carnivores can support their conservation, for instance to reintroduce a species to an area where it has been exterminated, or to reinforce an existing population to increase its viability. But to date, there has been little information about what factors determine whether these (often costly) efforts are successful or not.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The study was carried out by an international team led by researchers at the University of Oxford’s Department of Biology, <a href="https://www.wildcru.org/" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU),</a> and School of Geography and the Environment. The group analysed data from almost 300 animal relocations which took place between 2007 and 2021. These spanned 22 countries in five continents, and involved 18 different carnivore species, including bears, hyaenas, big cats, and wild dogs.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">Key findings:</span></p><ul style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Overall, two thirds (66%) of the relocations were successful (where the animal survived in the wild for over 6 months).</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a name="_Hlk125620921" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">Success rates for large carnivore relocations have increased significantly since before 2007. For wild-born carnivores, success rates increased from 53% pre-2007 to 70%; and for captive-born animals, success rates doubled from 32% in pre-2007 to 64%.</a></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">The species with the highest success rates included maned wolves, pumas, and ocelots which had a 100% success rate. The species with the lowest success rates (around 50%) were African lions, brown hyenas, cheetahs, Iberian lynx, and wolves.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Overall, using a ‘soft release’ increased the odds of success by 2.5-fold. This involves acclimatising the animal to the new environment before it is fully released.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Releasing younger animals (particularly 1 -2 year olds), also increased success rates. This may be because younger animals have greater behavioural plasticity to adapt to new environments, and they are less likely to have developed homing behaviours.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">For animals born in captivity, the success rate decreased by 1.5-fold, compared with animals born in the wild.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">However, just over a third (37%) of the relocated animals were observed to find a mate and/or raise a cub in their new habitat.</li></ul><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Although the fact that most relocated animals survived is encouraging, the authors say that the low mating success shows the ongoing challenges facing rewilding efforts and, crucially, the importance of protecting habitats that already exist.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Lead author <a href="https://www.biology.ox.ac.uk/people/seth-thomas" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">Seth Thomas</a> (Department of Biology, University of Oxford) remarked: ‘In the last 15 years we have become more successful at translocating and reintroducing large carnivores. This allows us to be optimistic for the future of rebuilding damaged ecosystems around the globe, but we must remember that it is always more important to protect large carnivore populations where they are now before we lose them. Even as we have grown to be more successful, 34% of individual translocations fail and they cannot be seen as a replacement for immediate conservation action to save these populations.’</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">In the near future, relocating large carnivores may become increasingly necessary as habitats become altered due to climate change, and if land use changes increase conflict between humans and animals.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">In the UK, one of the most nature-deprived countries in the world, there have been calls to reintroduce formerly native apex predators, such as wolves and the Eurasian lynx.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"><a href="https://www.biology.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-david-macdonald" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">Professor David Macdonald</a> (WildCRU, Department of Biology, University of Oxford), a co-author for the study, said: ‘As the UN decade of ecosystem restoration gets underway, the ecological need and political appetite for relocations of large carnivores has never been greater, and they have the potential to contribute more now than ever before to biodiversity conservation. By scrutinising the most geographically comprehensive sample of relocated large carnivores to date, our study makes plain to conservationists and policy makers the urgency of improving rewilding efforts.’</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Professor Alastair Driver, the Director of the charity Rewilding Britain (who were not directly involved in the study) said: ‘This study could not come at a better time here in the UK, with the devolved governments at last consulting positively on the merits of species reintroductions and various groups working hard on the feasibility of reintroducing species such as the European Wildcat and Eurasian Lynx. We still have a long way to go to overcome the misconceptions which dominate societal concerns around sharing our human-dominated landscape with other apex predators, but this report and the successes which it documents, will be hugely valuable in securing a more "grown-up" discussion on the subject. I have no doubt that this will, in turn, lead to well-planned and implemented carnivore reintroductions which only 10 years ago, I would have thought inconceivable in my lifetime.’</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Dr. Miha Krofel (University of Ljubljana), a co-author who worked on lynx reintroductions included in the study said: ‘The main reason that allowed us to quantify the higher rate of success is the wider applicability of tracking technology compared to 15 years ago. Nowadays, many practitioners and scientists fit animals with tracking tags for better post-release monitoring of the translocated individuals. This allows us to learn from past releases to improve our interventions in the future.’</p><div><br /></div></div>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-41068770794011010792023-02-08T13:58:00.006-08:002023-02-08T13:58:41.070-08:00 Caribou have been using same Arctic calving grounds for 3,000 years<p><br /></p><header style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p class="subtitle" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><br /></p></header><div class="entry" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 23px;"><figure class="thumbnail pull-right" style="background-color: white; border-radius: 0px; border: none; box-sizing: border-box; float: right; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857; margin: 0px 0px 20px 34px; padding: 0px; position: relative; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; width: 288px; z-index: 9999;"><a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/973670" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;"><div class="img-wrapper" style="background: rgb(241, 241, 241); border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: 288px; text-align: center; white-space: nowrap; width: 288px;"><img alt="Caribou" src="https://earimediaprodweb.azurewebsites.net/Api/v1/Multimedia/c7322455-d1b8-4929-b130-4204bee90715/Rendition/low-res/Content/Public" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: auto; max-height: 272px; max-width: 272px; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" /> </div></a><figcaption class="caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">IMAGE: ALASKA'S BARREN-GROUND CARIBOU HAVE BEEN USING THE SAME PARTS OF THE ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE TO GIVE BIRTH TO THEIR CALVES FOR AT LEAST 3,000 YEARS, ACCORDING TO RESEARCHERS.</span> <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/973670" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; font-weight: 600; text-decoration-line: none; text-transform: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">view <span class="no-break-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; white-space: nowrap;">more <span class="fa fa-angle-right" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-family: FontAwesome; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1; text-rendering: auto;"></span></span></a></p><p class="credit" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #aaaaaa; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">CREDIT: MICHAEL MILLER</p></figcaption></figure><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Caribou have been using the same Arctic calving grounds for more than 3,000 years, according to a new study by the University of Cincinnati.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Female caribou shed their antlers within days of giving birth, leaving behind a record of their annual travels across Alaska and Canada’s Yukon that persists on the cold tundra for hundreds or even thousands of years. Researchers recovered antlers that have sat undisturbed on the arctic tundra since the Bronze Age.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“To walk around the landscape and pick up something that’s 3,000 years old is truly amazing,” said Joshua Miller, an assistant professor of geosciences at the University of Cincinnati.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">He has been leading summer expeditions to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge since 2010, using rafts to navigate remote rivers to search for caribou antlers exposed on the tundra.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“We think about having to dig down into the soil to find that kind of ecological history, but on the Coastal Plain, the vegetation grows extremely slowly,” Miller said. “Bones dropped by animals that lived dozens or even hundreds of generations in the past can provide really meaningful information.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The study demonstrates how important the area is for an animal that native Alaskans and Candians still depend on for sustenance, even as energy companies seek to exploit oil and gas resources in this protected area.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The Biden Administration in 2021 suspended drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the largest tract of undeveloped wilderness in the United States. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“We know this region of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has been an important area for caribou for millennia,” Miller said. “That should give us pause on how we think about those landscapes.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Barren ground caribou undertake nature’s longest overland migration, traveling as far as 800 miles each year to reach their spring calving grounds in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Canada’s Ivvavik National Park. The largest herd in this area, named for the Porcupine River, numbers in the hundreds of thousands of animals.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Scientists think caribou use these areas because they have fewer predators and offer seasonal vegetation near places where they can avoid the worst of the mosquitoes.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“The mosquitoes are horrible,” Miller said. “You get swarmed — literally covered in them. They can do significant damage to a young calf.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Whatever the reason, the antlers they leave behind provide a physical record of their epic yearly travels that researchers can unlock through isotopic analysis. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Caribou antlers, like those of elk, deer and moose, are made of fast-growing bone that the animals shed each year and regrow the following year.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“It is amazing to think that the oldest of the antlers found in our study were growing approximately the same time Homer was penning ‘the Iliad’ and ‘the Odyssey,’” study co-author Patrick Druckenmiller said.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">He is director of the University of Alaska Museum and professor of the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Eric Wald from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also co-authored the study.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The antler surveys in the vast expanse of the Arctic refuge require meticulous logistical planning, Miller said. Small planes deposit researchers and their gear deep in the interior, where they have to be watchful for grizzly and polar bears. They pilot rafts to the Beaufort Sea, conducting a grid search of suitable caribou habitat identified in advance using aerial photography.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“We search for antlers along old river terraces, walking back and forth, covering every inch of habitat to find those ancient treasures,” Miller said. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">While male caribou antlers span four feet and weigh more than 20 pounds, female caribou antlers are much smaller. The antlers contain nutrients such as phosphorus and calcium that are important to plants and animals.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The dropped antlers create “nutrient sinks,” which could have a profound effect on the area’s vegetation. Miller said the caribou’s migration serves as a nutrient “conveyor belt” that might even draw caribou back to reap the benefits of this fertilizer in a reinforcement loop.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Caribou and other mammals are known to chew on dropped antlers for their valuable minerals. This could be an important dietary supplement for new caribou moms.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“We’d like to know to what degree this conveyor belt influences why caribou are going there in the first place,” Miller said.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />The study was supported by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Geographic Society, the National Science Foundation, the Wildlife Society and the UC Office of Research.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Miller said the Arctic is warming faster than other parts of the globe. Parts of the Arctic that were once barren tundra are sprouting new spruce forests.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“We were in Arctic Village this summer, just south of the calving grounds, talking to elders about the changes they have seen,” Miller said. “Where once it was open tundra, large stretches of this barren ground are now full of trees everywhere. What will happen to the barren ground caribou as this habitat gets converted into forest?”</p><hr class="hidden-xs hidden-sm" style="border-bottom: 0px; border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top-style: solid; box-sizing: content-box; font-size: 14px; height: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px;" /><div class="featured_image" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; position: relative;"><div class="details" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><div class="well" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">JOURNAL</h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 5px 0px 0px;">Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution</p></div><div class="well" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">DOI</h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 5px 0px 0px;"><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2022.1059456" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;" target="_blank">10.3389/fevo.2022.1059456 <span class="fa fa-sign-out" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-family: FontAwesome; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1; text-rendering: auto;"></span></a></p></div><div class="well" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"></div></div></div></div>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-15404532808902070722023-01-25T15:55:00.007-08:002023-01-25T15:56:22.625-08:00Wolves eliminate deer on Alaskan Island then quickly shift to eating sea otters<p> </p><header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><h1 class="page_title" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2b2b; font-family: inherit; font-size: 34px; font-weight: 300; letter-spacing: -0.34px; line-height: 1.1; margin: 25px 0px 0px;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="color: #333333;">Wolves on an Alaskan island caused a deer population to plumet and switched to primarily eating sea otters in just a few years, a finding scientists at Oregon State University and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game believe is the first case of sea otters becoming the primary food source for a land-based predator.</span></h1></header><div class="entry" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 23px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Using methods such as tracking the wolves with GPS collars and analyzing their scat, the researchers found that in 2015 deer were the primary food of the wolves, representing 75% of their diet, while sea otters comprised 25%. By 2017, wolves transitioned to primarily consuming sea otters (57% of their diet) while the frequency of deer declined to 7%. That pattern held through 2020, the end of the study period.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“Sea otters are this famous predator in the near-shore ecosystem and wolves are one of the most famous apex predators in terrestrial systems,” said <a href="https://fwcs.oregonstate.edu/users/taal-levi" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">Taal Levi</a>, an associate professor at Oregon State. “So, it’s pretty surprising that sea otters have become the most important resource feeding wolves. You have top predators feeding on a top predator.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The finding were published today in <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">PNAS</em>.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Historically, wolves and sea otters likely lived in the study area, Pleasant Island, which is located in an island landscape adjacent to Glacier Bay about 40 miles west of Juneau. The island is about 20 square miles, uninhabited and accessible only by boat or float plane.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">During the 1800s and much of the 1900s, populations of sea otters in this region were wiped out from fur trade hunting. Unlike wolves in the continental USA, Southeast Alaskan wolves were not hunted to local extinction. Only in recent decades, particularly with the reintroduction and legal protection of sea otters, have the populations of both species recovered and once again overlapped, providing new opportunities for predator-prey interactions between the two species.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The researchers studied the wolf pack on Pleasant Island and the adjacent mainland from 2015 to 2021. Gretchen Roffler, a wildlife research biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and others from the department collected 689 wolf scats, many along the island’s shoreline.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Once the scat is collected, members of Levi’s lab in Oregon used molecular tools, such as DNA metabarcoding and genotyping of the scat, to identify individual wolves and determine their diets.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Roffler also captured and placed GPS collars on four wolves on the island and nine on the mainland. The researchers were curious whether wolves were traveling between the mainland and island, considering other scientists have found they are capable of swimming up to eight miles between land masses. Both the GPS collar data and genotypes of the scats confirmed they were not, indicating that the island wolf pack is stable and that the island is not a hunting ground for mainland wolves.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Locations from the GPS-collared wolves also provide evidence that the wolves are killing sea otters when they are in shallow water or are resting on rocks near shore exposed at low tide. Roffler and her crew have investigated wolf GPS clusters on Pleasant Island for three, 30-day field seasons since 2021 and found evidence of 28 sea otters killed by wolves.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“The thing that really surprised me is that sea otters became the main prey of wolves on this island,” Roffler said. “Occasionally eating a sea otter that has washed up on the beach because it died, that is not unusual. But the fact that wolves are eating so many of them indicates it has become a widespread behavior pattern throughout this pack and something that they learned how to do very quickly.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“And from the work we are doing investigating kill sites, we are learning that wolves are actively killing the sea otters. So, they aren’t just scavenging sea otters that are dead or dying, they are stalking them and hunting them and killing them and dragging them up onto the land above the high tide line to consume them.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Shortly after wolves colonized Pleasant Island in 2013, the deer population on the island plummeted. With the wolves having consumed most of the deer, their main food source, Levi said he would have expected the wolves to leave the island or die off. Instead, the wolves remained and the pack grew to a density not previously seen with wolf populations, Levi said. The main reason, he believes, is the availability of sea otters as a food source.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The findings outlined in the<em style="box-sizing: border-box;"> PNAS </em>paper build on research findings<a href="https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ecs2.3297" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;"> published in 2021</a> by the same researchers. In that paper they showed – in what they believe is a first – that wolves were eating sea otters. This was documented throughout the Alexander Archipelago, a group of Southeastern Alaskan islands which includes Pleasant Island.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The research has now expanded to study wolves and sea otters in Katmai National Park & Preserve, which is in southwest Alaska, about 700 miles from Pleasant Island. Early research by <a href="https://agsci-labs.oregonstate.edu/levit/2021/03/10/ellen-dymit/" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">Ellen Dymit</a>, a doctoral student in Levi’s lab, and Roffler indicates that wolves are also eating sea otters there. In fact, at that location Roffler and Dymit observed three wolves killing a sea otter near the shore</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">In addition to Levi and Roffler, co-authors of the PNAS paper are Charlotte Eriksson, a post-doctoral scholar in Levi’s lab, and Jennifer Allen, the environmental genetics lab manager in Levi’s lab. Levi is in the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences in the College of Agricultural Sciences.</p><hr class="hidden-xs hidden-sm" style="border-bottom: 0px; border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top-style: solid; box-sizing: content-box; height: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px;" /><div class="featured_image" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; position: relative;"><div class="details" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><div class="well" style="background: none; border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">JOURNAL</h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 23px; margin: 5px 0px 0px;">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</p></div></div></div></div><div class="well article_disclaimer hidden-search" style="background: rgb(241, 241, 241); border-radius: 0px; border: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 20px 0px 25px; min-height: 20px; padding: 19px;"></div>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-88961192297424876962023-01-17T15:04:00.005-08:002023-01-17T15:04:27.044-08:00 New research shows humans impact wolf packs in national parks<p><br /></p><header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"></header><div class="entry" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 23px;"><figure class="thumbnail pull-right" style="border-radius: 0px; border: none; box-sizing: border-box; float: right; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857; margin: 0px 0px 20px 34px; padding: 0px; position: relative; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; width: 288px; z-index: 9999;"><a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/971148" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;"><div class="img-wrapper" style="background: rgb(241, 241, 241); border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: 288px; text-align: center; white-space: nowrap; width: 288px;"><img alt="Shoepack Lake Pack-UMN-Voyageurs Wolf Project" src="https://earimediaprodweb.azurewebsites.net/Api/v1/Multimedia/8f523707-9ec8-4c34-b911-16531006502c/Rendition/low-res/Content/Public" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: auto; max-height: 272px; max-width: 272px; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" /> </div></a><figcaption class="caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">IMAGE: TRAIL CAMERA FOOTAGE OF THE SHOEPACK LAKE PACK WALKING ALONG A SANDY BEACH IN VOYAGEURS NATIONAL PARK IN THE FALL.</span> <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/971148" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; font-weight: 600; text-decoration-line: none; text-transform: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">view <span class="no-break-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; white-space: nowrap;">more <span class="fa fa-angle-right" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-family: FontAwesome; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1; text-rendering: auto;"></span></span></a></p><p class="credit" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #aaaaaa; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">CREDIT: CREDIT: VOYAGEURS WOLF PROJECT</p></figcaption></figure><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">New research shows how humans are a substantial source of mortality for wolves that live predominantly in national parks — and more importantly, that human-caused mortality triggers instability in wolf packs in national parks.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Published today in <em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fee.2597" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment</a>,</em> the study was led by Kira Cassidy, a research associate at Yellowstone National Park, and included co-authors at five national parks and University of Minnesota <a href="https://www.voyageurswolfproject.org/" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">Voyageurs Wolf Project</a> researchers Thomas Gable, Joseph Bump and Austin Homkes.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />“For gray wolves, the biological unit is the pack or the family. We wanted to focus on the impacts of human-caused mortality to the pack, a finer-scale measure than population size or growth rate,” said Cassidy. “We found the odds a pack persists and reproduces drops with more human-caused mortalities.” <br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />While many studies have looked at how humans impact wolf populations, this study took a different approach and examined how human-caused mortality affects individual wolf packs. To do this, Cassidy and her team contrasted what happened to wolf packs after at least one pack member was killed by human-causes with packs where no members died of human-causes.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />The researchers found that the chance a pack stayed together to the end of the year decreased by 27% when a pack member died of human causes, and whether or not that pack reproduced the next year decreased by 22%. When a pack leader died, the impact was more substantial, with the chance of the pack making it to the end of the year decreasing by 73% and reproduction by 49%.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Although the researchers did not examine whether human-caused mortality alters the size of wolf populations in national parks, this work shows that people are clearly altering certain aspects of wolf ecology in national parks even if they are not impacting overall population size.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">One reason for this is that humans are a disproportionate cause of mortality for wolves that live predominantly in national parks. In other words, wolves die more often of human-causes than would be expected for the amount of time wolves spend outside of park boundaries. <br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Of all national parks in the study, wolves in Voyageurs National Park spent the most time outside of park boundaries. In fact, wolves that had territories in or overlapping Voyageurs spent 46% of their time outside of the park. The result: 50% of all mortalities for these wolves came at the hands of people, with poaching being the most common cause of death.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />“The unique shape of Voyageurs means that there are very few wolf packs that live entirely within the boundaries of the park. Instead, many wolf pack territories straddle the park border and when wolves leave the park, they are at an increased risk of being killed by people,” said Gable, a post-doctoral associate in the University of Minnesota’s College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences and project lead of the Voyageurs Wolf Project, which studies wolves in and around Voyageurs National Park.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />However, Voyageurs was hardly unique as this pattern was similar across the other national parks in the study — Denali National Park and Preserve, Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, and Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve — with human-caused mortality accounting for 36% of collared wolf mortality across all five parks.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Legal hunting and trapping of wolves outside of national park boundaries accounted for 53% of all human-caused mortality for wolves from national parks during hunting and trapping seasons.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />These findings highlight why collaboration between different state and federal agencies is key when conserving and managing wildlife that go in and out of protected areas such as national parks. <br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />“Wildlife populations that cross hard boundaries from federal to state ownership are a challenge to manage. Wolves don’t know the park boundary lines,” said Bump, an associate professor in the U of M’s College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />The Voyageurs Wolf Project is funded by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR).</p><hr class="hidden-xs hidden-sm" style="border-bottom: 0px; border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top-style: solid; box-sizing: content-box; height: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px;" /><div class="featured_image" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; position: relative;"><div class="details" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><div class="well" style="background: none; border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">JOURNAL</h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 23px; margin: 5px 0px 0px;">Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment</p></div><div class="well" style="background: none; border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">DOI</h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 5px 0px 0px;"><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/fee.2597" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;" target="_blank">10.1002/fee.2597 <span class="fa fa-sign-out" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-family: FontAwesome; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1; text-rendering: auto;"></span></a></p></div></div></div></div>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-39089961975028230602022-12-05T14:37:00.005-08:002022-12-05T14:37:52.219-08:00 Parasite may create risk-taking wolves in Yellowstone<p><a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/releaseguidelines" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: red; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">Peer-Reviewed Publication</a></p><header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><p class="meta_institute" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2b2b; margin: 2px 0px 20px; text-transform: uppercase; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">THE UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA</p><div class="toolbar hidden-print hidden-search" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><div class="col-xs-6" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: left; min-height: 1px; padding: 15px; position: relative; width: 305.656px;"><div class="addthis_inline_share_toolbox_pnaa" data-description="New research from a University of Montana student and his partners suggests that a common parasite associated with cats turns Yellowstone National Park wolves into risk takers, who when infected are much more likely to disperse across the landscape and become pack leaders." data-title="Parasite may create risk-taking wolves in Yellowstone" data-url="https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/973399" style="box-sizing: border-box; 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display: inline-block; height: 288px; text-align: center; white-space: nowrap; width: 288px;"><img alt="Connor Meyer" src="https://earimediaprodweb.azurewebsites.net/Api/v1/Multimedia/fce272cb-c854-4b2a-99e8-cdf016ce62b7/Rendition/low-res/Content/Public" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: auto; max-height: 272px; max-width: 272px; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" /> </div></a><figcaption class="caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">IMAGE: UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA DOCTORAL STUDENT CONNOR MEYER, SHOWN HERE WITH A WOLF SKULL IN UM’S ZOOLOGICAL MUSEUM, STUDIES THE EFFECTS OF A PARASITE ON WOLVES IN YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK.</span> <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/967376" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; font-weight: 600; text-decoration-line: none; text-transform: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">view <span class="no-break-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; white-space: nowrap;">more <span class="fa fa-angle-right" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-family: FontAwesome; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1; text-rendering: auto;"></span></span></a></p><p class="credit" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #aaaaaa; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA PHOTO BY TOMMY MARTINO</p></figcaption></figure><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 600;">MISSOULA</span><span style="font-size: 14px;"> – </span>New research from a University of Montana student and his partners suggests that a common parasite associated with cats turns Yellowstone National Park wolves into risk takers, who when infected are much more likely to disperse across the landscape and become pack leaders.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The story caught fire with media outlets worldwide, with both <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/30/world/mind-control-parasite-toxoplasmosis-wolves-scn/index.html" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">CNN</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/11/27/1139307778/what-makes-a-wolf-leader-of-the-pack-new-research-says-its-parasites-in-the-brai" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">NPR</a> picking it up. The research <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-022-04122-0" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">originally was published in the journal <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Communications Biology</em></a>.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“I’ve been blown away by it,” said Connor Meyer, a wildlife biology doctoral student in UM’s <a href="https://www.cfc.umt.edu/research/heblab/" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">Ungulate Ecology Lab</a>, part of the <a href="https://www.umt.edu/environment/default.php" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">W.A. Franke College of Forestry & Conservation</a>. “I’m surprised and grateful, but it’s been a bit of a nerve-wracking experience with all the attention.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Meyer and his team created the story sensation by studying a single-celled creature named Toxoplasma gondii – often nicknamed the “mind-control parasite.” It prefers to live in felines, and infected cats spread spore-packed oocysts in their feces. T. gondii – which Meyer calls “toxo” for short – is the reason pregnant people aren’t supposed to clean the litterbox. Human immune systems usually keep it in check, but the parasite causes sickness that can be dangerous to fetuses, as well as those who are immunocompromised, such as HIV/AIDS patients.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">T. gondii can infect all warm-blooded mammals, and it’s estimated a third of all people are carriers. The parasite settles in muscles and brains, and it’s known to boost dopamine and testosterone. This affects behavior: Studies have shown that infected rodents lose their fear of feline urine or cats and move around in the open more, making them more likely to be eaten. Infected captive chimpanzees lose their aversion to leopard urine.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">It’s almost like they are being biologically controlled so the parasite can return to the comfy insides of its preferred feline host. But do other beasts get affected that aren’t part of the regular T. gondii life cycle?</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Meyer and his fellow lead author, Yellowstone park biologist Kira Cassidy, started a serious study of the prevalence of T. gondii among park wolves in spring 2021. They discovered a toxo-positive wolf becomes more of a risk taker – 11 times more likely to disperse from its original pack and 46 times more likely to become a pack leader.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Yellowstone wolves are among the most studied animals in the world. Since they were reintroduced in 1995, park managers have taken blood samples every time a wolf is captured and collared. Meyer and his team wound up testing blood from 243 wolves for toxo antibodies with assistance from a Cornell University diagnostics lab. They also used data from long-term and ongoing <a href="https://www.yellowstone.org/wolf-project/" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">Yellowstone Wolf Project</a> research. More than 27% of the wolves they looked at – about 74 individuals all told – were infected with T. gondii.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The researchers first suspected wolves were getting infected by eating elk, their chief prey. But when they tested more than 100 elk, none were positive for the parasite.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“Eventually we found the most significant predictor of infection with wolves was when their range overlapped areas with high mountain lion density,” Meyer said. “So, with no elk testing positive, we hypothesized they were getting infected directly by cougars.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Yellowstone wolves can slay and eat mountain lions, but there only have been 10 or so documented cases of that since 1995. Meyer said it’s more likely wolves they get toxo infection by nosing around “scrape sites,” where cougars defecate and mark their territory.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“We also have a litter box theory,” he said. “Almost anyone who has a dog and cat at home knows that, if the dog gets an opportunity, they are going to raid the litter box. We don’t have direct evidence of wolves eating mountain lion scat, but we have lots of photos of wolves at mountain lion scrapes. Wolves eat lots of things, so we don’t think it’s much of a stretch.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Meyer said they want to emphasize they aren’t claiming that toxo causes wolves to become leaders.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“Toxo is not the only factor that predicts whether wolves will lead the pack,” he said. “It’s one of the many things that affect wolf behavior, just like in humans. With our study, being toxo-positive shortened the time it took for individuals to disperse, but toxo-negative individuals would still disperse and still become pack leaders. So we aren’t saying that toxo runs the world – we are saying it may accelerate some of these behaviors.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">He also said wolf packs generally have two leaders, a male and a female, and both are equally likely to test positive for the parasite.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">A native of Whidbey Island, Washington, Meyer first became fascinated by the T. gondii life cycle as an undergraduate at the University of Washington. He then was hired by Dr. Matthew Metz – who earned his Ph.D. from UM last year – to work for the Yellowstone Wolf Project and soon after also began work with the <a href="https://www.yellowstone.org/cougar-project/" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">Yellowstone Cougar Project</a>. Over six years he worked on a variety of research efforts, which brought him into the orbit of Professor Mark Hebblewhite, leader of UM’s Ungulate Ecology Lab. Meyer started making inquiries about grad school.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“UM is one of the best – if not the best – wildlife biology graduate schools in the nation,” Meyer said, “so I definitely had an interest in coming here. Mark said working on the toxo paper could help me get into his program. I started at UM in 2021, working with Mark on an elk migration study in Canada. Doing this paper gave me a little more confidence as I jumped straight into a super-intense Ph.D. program.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Though Meyer believes stories about T. gondii may be getting a bit sensationalized, and that too much may be attributed to its supposed mind-bending powers, he said we need to learn more about the parasite. Studies suggest that humans infected with toxo are more likely to like cats, develop schizophrenia or engage in road rage. He said a recent study on a college campus found students infected with toxo generally were rated more attractive.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Is it messing with our minds?</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“More work definitely needs to be done,” Meyer said. “Luckily for us with our study, we had all that excellent data, we had all the blood serum and we had the time, interest and encouragement to check it out.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; margin: 5px 0px 15px; text-align: center;">###</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /> </p><div style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></div></div>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-56697355891393351712022-10-20T13:48:00.001-07:002022-10-20T13:48:28.686-07:00Disease outbreaks influence the color of wolves across North America<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">New research from the University of Oxford, Yellowstone National Park, and Penn State, published today in the journal</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Science</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">, may have finally solved why wolves change colour across the North American continent.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">If you were to travel from Arctic Canada and head south down the Rocky Mountains into the US toward Mexico, the further south you go, the more black wolves there are. The reasons why have long puzzled scientists.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">Professor Tim Coulson from the Department of Biology, University of Oxford</span> who led the work explains, ‘In most parts of the world black wolves are absent or very rare, yet in North America they are common in some areas and absent in others. Scientists have long wondered why. We now have an explanation based on wolf surveys across North America, and modelling motivated by extraordinary data collected by co-authors who work in Yellowstone.’</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Coat colour in wolves (<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Canis lupus</em>) is determined by a gene called <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">CPD103</em>. Depending on the variant of the gene a wolf has, its coat can either be black or grey.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The researchers postulated that this gene also plays a role in protecting against respiratory diseases such as canine distemper virus (CDV). This is because the DNA region containing the gene also encodes for a protein that plays a role in defending against infections in the lungs of mammals. They predicted that having a black coat would be associated with the ability of wolves to survive an infection with CDV.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">To test this idea, they analysed 12 wolf populations from North America, to examine whether the probability of a wolf being black was predicted by the presence of CDV antibodies. If a wolf has CDV antibodies, then it has caught CDV in the past and survived. They found that wolves with CDV antibodies were more likely to be black than grey. They also found that black wolves were more common in areas where CDV outbreaks occurred.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The researchers analysed over 20 years-worth of data from the wolf population at Yellowstone National Park. They found that black wolves were more likely to survive CDV outbreaks compared with grey wolves. These results led them to hypothesise that in areas where distemper outbreaks occur wolves should choose mates of the opposite coat colour to maximize the chance their cubs would have black coats.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">They used a simple mathematical model to test this idea. Excitingly, the predictions from their model closely matched the observations that black and grey wolves were more likely to pair in areas where CDV outbreaks are common. This competitive advantage is lost in areas where CDV outbreaks do not occur.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">These results are consistent with the idea that the frequency of CDV outbreaks across North America is responsible for the distribution of black wolves, because having the gene for a black coat may also provide protection against the virus. It also explains why mating pairs in Yellowstone, where canine distemper outbreaks occur, tend to be black-grey.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">Peter Hudson, Willaman Professor of Biology, Penn State </span>said ‘It’s intriguing that the gene for protection against CDV came from domestic dogs brought by the first humans entering North America, and the CDV disease virus emerged in North America many thousands of years later, once again from dogs.’</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">‘What I love about this study is how we have been able to bring together experts from so many fields and a range of approaches to show how disease can have remarkable impacts on wolf morphology and behaviour. We are learning that disease is a major evolutionary driver that impacts so many aspect aspects of animal populations.’</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The researchers speculate that other species may follow a similar pattern to wolves. Many insects, amphibians, birds and nonhuman mammals have associations between colour and disease resistance. It might be that the presence a disease, or how frequently a disease outbreak occurs, is an important factor affecting the colour of mate an animal prefers.</p><div><br /></div>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-57046790276059573752022-09-07T14:36:00.000-07:002022-09-07T14:36:06.226-07:00Isle Royale Winter Study finds wolves living their best lives, moose not so much<header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><h1 class="page_title" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2b2b2b; font-family: inherit; font-size: 34px; font-weight: 300; letter-spacing: -0.34px; line-height: 1.1; margin: 25px 0px 0px;"><br /></h1></header><div class="entry" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px;"><figure class="thumbnail pull-right" style="border-radius: 0px; border: none; box-sizing: border-box; float: right; line-height: 1.42857; margin: 0px 0px 20px 34px; padding: 0px; position: relative; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; width: 288px; z-index: 9999;"><a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/948341" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;"><div class="img-wrapper" style="background: rgb(241, 241, 241); border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: 288px; text-align: center; white-space: nowrap; width: 288px;"><img alt="Isle Royale wolves" src="https://earimediaprodweb.azurewebsites.net/Api/v1/Multimedia/ef0966df-159f-44c9-a210-8d55b44e53d7/Rendition/low-res/Content/Public" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: auto; max-height: 272px; max-width: 272px; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" /> </div></a><figcaption class="caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">IMAGE: TWO PUPS FROM THE EASTERN PACK TRY TO ROUSE PACKMATES FOR PLAY.</span> <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/948341" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; font-weight: 600; text-decoration-line: none; text-transform: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">view <span class="no-break-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; white-space: nowrap;">more <span class="fa fa-angle-right" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-family: FontAwesome; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1; text-rendering: auto;"></span></span></a></p><p class="credit" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #aaaaaa; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">CREDIT: SARAH HOY</p></figcaption></figure><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Key findings include:</p><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">A doubling of the wolf population, now estimated at 28 total wolves. “Each time we carried out aerial surveys this winter, we saw wolf tracks across many parts of the island and we also regularly saw groups of wolves traveling or resting together,” said Hoy. “It is such a pleasant change from five years ago when there were only two wolves on the island and the future of the wolf population looked pretty bleak. It just goes to show how quickly wolf populations are able to thrive in places where they are free from persecution.”</li></ul><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">A 28% decline in the moose population, from 1,876 to 1,346. Wolf kills accounted for 8.7% of the moose mortalities, the highest predation rate since 2011. Other challenges for the moose include blood-sucking winter ticks that weaken the animals, and spruce budworm infestations that kill balsam fir, their preferred winter food. “Over the past year we found an unusually high number of moose that appear to have died due to malnutrition,” Hoy said. “The population appears to be suffering from a food shortage, especially in winter when moose don’t have many good options of things to eat.”</li></ul><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">For more information and to access the Winter Study report, read <a href="https://www.mtu.edu/news/2022/06/isle-royale-winter-study-good-year-for-wolves-tough-one-for-moose.html" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;" target="_blank">the full story</a> at MTU News.</p></div>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-89888526387119669332022-08-09T14:39:00.000-07:002022-08-09T14:39:28.210-07:00 More wolves, beavers needed as part of improving western United States habitats, scientists say<p><br /></p><header style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></header><header style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="color: #333333;">Oregon State University scientists are proposing management changes on western federal lands that they say would result in more wolves and beavers and would re-establish ecological processes.</span></header><div class="entry" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 23px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">In a paper published today in<em style="box-sizing: border-box;"> <a href="https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/biosci/biac069" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">BioScience</a></em><u style="box-sizing: border-box;">,</u><u style="box-sizing: border-box;"> “Rewilding the American West,” </u>co-lead author William Ripple and 19 other authors suggest using portions of federal lands in 11 states to establish a network based on potential habitat for the gray wolf – an apex predator able to trigger powerful, widespread ecological effects.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">In those states the authors identified areas, each at least 5,000 square kilometers, of contiguous, federally managed lands containing prime wolf habitat. The states in the proposed Western Rewilding Network, which would cover nearly 500,000 square kilometers, are Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“It’s an ambitious idea, but the American West is going through an unprecedented period of converging crises including extended drought and water scarcity, extreme heat waves, massive fires and loss of biodiversity,” said Ripple, distinguished professor of ecology in the OSU College of Forestry.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Gray wolves were hunted to near extinction in the West but were reintroduced to parts of the northern Rocky Mountains and the Southwest starting in the 1990s through measures made possible by the Endangered Species Act.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“Still, the gray wolf’s current range in those 11 states is only about 14% of its historical range,” said co-lead author Christopher Wolf, a postdoctoral scholar in the College of Forestry. “They probably once numbered in the tens of thousands, but today there might only be 3,500 wolves across the entire West.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Beaver populations, once robust across the West, declined roughly 90% after settler colonialism and are now nonexistent in many streams, meaning ecosystem services are going unprovided, the authors say.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">By felling trees and shrubs and constructing dams, beavers enrich fish habitat, increase water and sediment retention, maintain water flows during drought, improve water quality, increase carbon</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">sequestration and generally improve habitat for riparian plant and animal species.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“Beaver restoration is a cost-effective way to repair degraded riparian areas,” said co-author Robert Beschta, professor emeritus in the OSU College of Forestry. “Riparian areas occupy less than 2% of the land in the West but provide habitat for up to 70% of wildlife species.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Similarly, wolf restoration offers significant ecological benefits by helping to naturally control native ungulates such as elk, according to the authors. They say wolves facilitate regrowth of vegetation species such as aspen, which supports diverse plant and animal communities and is declining in the West.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The paper includes a catalogue of 92 threatened and endangered plant and animal species that have at least 10% of their ranges within the proposed Western Rewilding Network; for each species, threats from human activity were analyzed.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The authors determined the most common threat was livestock grazing, which they say can cause stream and wetland degradation, affect fire regimes and make it harder for woody species, especially willow, to regenerate.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Nationally, about 2% of meat production results from federal grazing permits, the paper notes.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“We suggest the removal of grazing on federal allotments from approximately 285,000 square kilometers within the rewilding network, representing 29% of the total 985,000 square kilometers of federal lands in the 11 western states that are annually grazed,” Beschta said. “That means we need an economically and socially just federal compensation program for those who give up their grazing permits. Rewilding will be most effective when participation concerns for all stakeholders are considered, including Indigenous people and their governments.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">In addition to Beschta, Wolf and Ripple, authors from Oregon State include J. Boone Kauffman, Beverly Law and Michael Paul Nelson. Daniel Ashe, former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and now the president of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, is also a co-author.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The paper also included authors from the University of Washington, the University of Colorado, the Ohio State University, Virginia Tech, Michigan Technological University, the University of Victoria, the Turner Endangered Species Fund, the National Parks and Conservation Association, RESOLVE, the Florida Institute for Conservation Science, Public Lands Media and Wild Heritage.</p><hr class="hidden-xs hidden-sm" style="border-bottom: 0px; border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top-style: solid; box-sizing: content-box; height: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px;" /><div class="featured_image" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; position: relative;"><div class="details" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><div class="well" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">JOURNAL</h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 23px; margin: 5px 0px 0px;">BioScience</p></div><div class="well" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">DOI</h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 23px; margin: 5px 0px 0px;"><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biac069" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: small;">10.1093/biosci/biac069 <span class="fa fa-sign-out" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-family: FontAwesome; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1; text-rendering: auto;"></span></span></a></p></div><div class="well" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"></div></div></div></div>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-24877274069760739312022-07-05T14:41:00.007-07:002022-07-05T14:41:30.074-07:00 Bring back the wolves – but not as heroes or villains<p> <b><br /></b></p><header style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="color: #333333;"><b>- In a new finding that goes against current conservation paradigms, re-introducing wolves and other predators to our landscapes does not miraculously reduce deer populations, restore degraded ecosystems or significantly threaten livestock, according to a new study.</b></span></header><header style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="color: #333333;"><b><br /></b></span></header><div class="entry" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; line-height: 23px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“The hopes and fears that we have on both sides of the debate – neither are realized. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t allow the wolves, the mountain lions, to return to their traditional landscapes – they’re a part of it,” said conservation biologist <a href="https://cals.cornell.edu/bernd-blossey" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">Bernd Blossey</a>, professor of natural resources and the environment at Cornell University. Blossey is lead author of <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcosc.2022.881483/full" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">“Myths, Wishful Thinking, and Accountability in Predator Conservation and Management in the United States,”</a> published June 3 in <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Frontiers in Conservation Science</em>. His co-author is Darragh Hare of Oxford University.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“Based on the currently available evidence (not just from the United States) large predators, despite their ability to kill ungulates and livestock, will not eliminate deer, threaten people or lead to intolerable losses of livestock – the myths,” the authors write. “On the other hand, large predators are unlikely to right all wrongs humans have inflicted on ecosystems – the wishful thinking.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">On the myths side, there is little evidence for claims that re-introducing large predators such as wolves, bears and mountain lions is a major threat to livestock and wild ungulates such as white-tailed deer, mule deer and elk.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">When the U.S. federal government took the wolf off the endangered species list, hunters and livestock producers, and some state governments, called for action combatting what they saw as a need to safeguard the wildlife they wanted to hunt and the livestock that was their livelihood.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">But it is nearly impossible to independently evaluate those claims, Blossey said. Other factors also kill livestock, from lightning strikes to hot or and cold weather, parasites, diseases, and poor husbandry and foraging conditions. And there’s much that livestock producers can do to protect their animals from predators, such as deploying more staff, guard dogs and fencing.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">And hunters don’t need to worry about wolves competing for deer. The U.S. deer population is at an historic high, in part because humans have given them ideal living conditions and plenty of food. “What we do to landscapes, whether that’s forestry, agriculture or gardening, provide deer with a perfect landscape for them to live in,” Blossey said. “Hunters don’t remove enough deer, cars don’t remove enough. Their populations exploded, because the living conditions were just absolutely wonderful.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">And the wishful thinking – that wolves and other predators can control deer populations and restore degraded ecosystems – lacks evidence as well. When large predators are present in a landscape, deer and other herbivores simply graze when wolves are resting.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“Meaningfully reducing deer populations in Wisconsin alone would require tens of thousands of wolves, at least temporarily until deer populations decline – an ecologically and socially impossible scenario,” the authors write.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">And wolves alone can’t undo the ecological damage humans have done, Blossey said. A popular video “How wolves change rivers,” which has been viewed more than 43 million times, suggests that the re-introduction of wolves in Yellowstone National Park triggered a cascade of effects that benefited the entire ecosystem.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“I was as fooled like everybody else by the lovely stories that came out of Yellowstone saying, you bring wolves back, and you restore the rivers, and everything’s hunky-dory,” Blossey said.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">In fact, these claims may be based on the collection of selective evidence, other research has shown. “Once I started digging like an archaeologist into the literature, I found things that were not supportive of what I thought I knew,” Blossey said. Other factors, such as hunters, grizzly bears, mountain lions, bison, beaver, rainfall patterns, climate, and the quality and quantity of vegetation may have also played significant roles.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Rather than relying on myths and wishful thinking, we should see large predators like wolves as a valuable part ecological communities in their own right, Blossey said, and not just for their function.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“As long as people learn to live with and tolerate the new (old) neighbors,” the authors write, “a careful but not fully conflict-free existence appears possible.”</p><hr class="hidden-xs hidden-sm" style="border-bottom: 0px; border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top-style: solid; box-sizing: content-box; height: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px;" /><div class="featured_image" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; position: relative;"><div class="details" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><div class="well" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">JOURNAL</h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 23px; margin: 5px 0px 0px;">Frontiers in Conservation Science</p></div><div class="well" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">DOI</h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 23px; margin: 5px 0px 0px;"><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fcosc.2022.881483" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: small;">10.3389/fcosc.2022.881483 </span><span class="fa fa-sign-out" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-family: FontAwesome; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1; text-rendering: auto;"></span></a></p></div><div class="well" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"></div></div></div></div>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-15650655699607215652022-06-14T15:16:00.001-07:002022-06-14T15:16:05.401-07:00 Panthers now No. 1 predator of white-tailed deer in Southwest Florida<p> </p><div class="entry" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">A new study by the University of Georgia found Florida panthers are the No. 1 cause of mortality for white-tailed deer in Southwest Florida.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The researchers set out to get a better picture of what factors most affect the survival of Florida’s white-tailed deer, the most popular game species in the state and a key prey species for the Florida panther.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Published this month in the <em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2664.14201" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;">Journal of Applied Ecology</a></em>, the publication is part of the South Florida Deer Study, a large-scale white-tailed deer research project funded by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission from 2015 to 2019.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The number of deer killed by Florida panthers was very high compared to previous studies, said Richard Chandler, associate professor in the UGA Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. Of the 241 deer captured and fitted with GPS collars during the study, 96 were killed by Florida panthers. During the 1990s, few deer were killed by panthers and the main sources of mortality came from bobcats and hunter harvest. In the new study, only seven deer were killed by bobcats, and only one deer was harvested by hunters.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“Panther predation went from a very small source of mortality to now being the dominant source of mortality for deer,” Chandler said.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Listed as endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Florida panther represents the only population of pumas in the eastern United States. Genetic restoration efforts began in the mid-1990s in response to low population and inbreeding concerns, and the panther population has increased substantially over the last 20 years, from 20 to 30 in the 1990s up to 200 in 2017. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">Population, habitat changes pose challenges for deer</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The increase in panther predation on deer comes amid a larger shift taking place across the landscape. The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan now underway will restore natural waterflows and benefit many aspects of the ecosystem, but it may also flood land that was already marginally hospitable to deer. The study found that deep water had a negative effect on female deer survival, although no cases of drowning were recorded.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Amid the landscape changes, Florida wildlife officials strive to maintain sustainable deer hunting opportunities. As in other parts of the country, there is a long, culturally important tradition of deer hunting in South Florida, and hunters provide a large amount of the funding for wildlife conservation in the state. Agencies must balance hunting opportunities with other public interests and panther conservation efforts.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“They have restricted hunter harvest quite a bit for the benefit of the deer population and to make sure there’s plenty of prey for panthers. But it’s a balancing act,” said Chandler. “They don’t want to shut down hunting opportunities, but they don’t want harvest to be so high that it suppresses the prey population and keeps the panthers from recovering. … That’s a big challenge, and it’s not easy. Our results emphasize how difficult that will be. Future work is needed to determine if additional habitat management can bolster the deer population for the benefit of panthers and people.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The study required teams of experts and technicians working year-round in remote areas of Southwest Florida.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The project’s co-investigators featured renowned deer experts and retired Warnell professors Karl V. Miller and Robert Warren, along with Mike Connor with the Jones Center at Ichauway, Warnell alumnus Mike Cherry, who now leads the deer research program at the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute at Texas A&M University, David Shindle with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Elina Garrison with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The study’s lead author, UGA postdoctoral researcher Florent Bled, is now a scientist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Graduate students Daniel Crawford, Brian Kelly, Heather Abernathy, Hunter Ellsworth, Lydia Stiffler and Kristin Engebretsen provided key support to the project, which benefited from assistance from the Big Cypress National Preserve, National Parks Service, and the USFWS Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge.</p><hr class="hidden-xs hidden-sm" style="border-bottom: 0px; border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top-style: solid; box-sizing: content-box; height: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px;" /><div class="featured_image" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; position: relative;"><div class="details" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><div class="well" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">JOURNAL</h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 5px 0px 0px;">Journal of Applied Ecology</p></div><div class="well" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">DOI</h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 5px 0px 0px;"><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14201" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear 0s;" target="_blank">10.1111/1365-2664.14201 <span class="fa fa-sign-out" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-family: FontAwesome; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1; text-rendering: auto;"></span></a></p></div><div class="well" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"></div></div></div></div>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-90593904792755157762022-04-20T15:25:00.002-07:002022-04-20T15:25:40.661-07:00The answer to keeping moose populations healthy? Wolves<p> Predators may keep prey populations healthy by acting as a selective force against genetic diseases. A new study found that wolves select adult moose based on age and osteoarthritis, a chronic disease that can be influenced by genetics. Wolves also showed a strong preference for elderly moose over prime-aged adults. The results indicate that wolves play an important role in keeping prey populations healthy and have considerable implications for the conservation management of predator and prey populations.</p><p><br /></p><p>Over the last decade, wolves have been at the center stage of conservation news. They were once one of the most widely distributed wild mammals on Earth. But after decades of habitat destruction and human persecution, wolves now only occupy about two thirds of their former range.</p><p><br /></p><p>Wolves as biodiversity managers</p><p><br /></p><p>Now, the wolf is making a comeback. The US has seen an increase in their wolf populations across the country, and extensive conservation efforts have led to a comeback across Europe. Yet their return has not been well-received by everyone. Predators may lead to human-wildlife conflicts, as wolves can pose a threat to livestock and pets.</p><p><br /></p><p>Even so, multiple case studies, such as the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone, have shown that the presence of wolves favors ecosystem health. Wolves keep prey populations, such as deer, elk, and moose, in check, which benefits vegetation. Carcasses left behind by wolves provide food for other animals such as scavengers and redistribute nutrients.</p><p><br /></p><p>A new study published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution found another way in which wolves may be beneficial for biodiversity: selective predation. Wolves preyed more on prime-aged adult moose with osteoarthritis than healthy prime-aged individuals. Wolves also showed a strong preference for elderly moose over prime-aged adults.</p><p><br /></p><p>Selective predation</p><p><br /></p><p>Selective predation means that a particular type of prey occurs more frequently in a predator's diet than what is expected based on the prey type's frequency in an environment. Predators tend to select individuals that are easier or less risky to hunt.</p><p><br /></p><p>Selective predation can have important impacts on prey population dynamics. Prey population growth rates are less impacted by predation when predators go for juveniles or elderly adults, as these individuals have lower reproductive values.</p><p><br /></p><p>Less well understood is the impact of predation of sick individuals on prey population health.</p><p><br /></p><p>“Wolf biologists have in the past assumed that wolves play an important role in regulating the health of prey populations by selectively removing old or diseased animals,” said Dr Sarah Hoy, of Michigan Technological University. “However, a rigorous assessment of that idea has not been tested until now.”</p><p><br /></p><p>Healthy moose populations</p><p><br /></p><p>Hoy and her colleague assessed the extent that wolves select adult moose on the basis of age-class and osteoarthritis.</p><p><br /></p><p>“Osteoarthritis is a progressively crippling disease caused by deterioration of cartilage on the surfaces of moveable joints (for example, knees and hip joints),” explained Hoy. “As individuals get older, they are more likely to develop osteoarthritis and develop more severe forms of the disease.”</p><p><br /></p><p>They also examined how temporal variation in kill rates were associated with the subsequent incidence of osteoarthritis in the moose population over a 33-year period.</p><p><br /></p><p>“When it comes to wolves and moose, it makes a lot of sense that wolves would preferentially target moose that are in poorer condition because adult moose weigh between 800 and 900lbs which is between eight and 10 times as heavy as a wolf,” said Hoy.</p><p><br /></p><p>They found that wolves showed strong selection for elderly moose and avoided prime-aged adults. The presence of severe osteoarthritis, but not mild or moderate, increased the vulnerability of prime-aged moose to predation.</p><p><br /></p><p>“But the situation is different for older moose. While older moose are more vulnerable to predation, that vulnerability does not strongly depend on whether an old moose has osteoarthritis,” explained Hoy.</p><p><br /></p><p>They also found that the incidence of osteoarthritis in the moose population declined following years with higher kill rates.</p><p><br /></p><p>“The decline in osteoarthritis following years with more predation is – we think – because wolves preferentially removed moose with osteoarthritis from the population,” said Hoy. </p><p><br /></p><p>Wolf conservation</p><p><br /></p><p>The results have important implications for wolf management and conservation. Hoy explained: “The management and conservation of wolves is controversial among the public. Yet our results suggest wolves might be an effective, natural, and more ethical way of regulating the health of deer and moose populations – as opposed to using culls or recreational hunting to reduce the incidence of diseases or parasites of concern.”</p><p><br /></p><p>“The results are also relevant for policy-related arguments about reasons to refrain from intensively hunting wolf populations,” continued Hoy.</p><p><br /></p><p>“When deciding whether to hunt wolves it is important to not only consider issues that may be caused by wolves (ie, occasional predation of livestock) but to also consider the important ecological benefits that wolves may provide by removing old and diseased animals from the populations.”</p><p><br /></p><p>JOURNAL</p><p>Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution</p><p><br /></p><p>DOI</p><p>10.3389/fevo.2022.819137 </p><p><br /></p>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-53709339877679431652022-03-28T15:12:00.007-07:002022-03-28T15:12:50.741-07:00 Caribou herd rebounds as Indigenous stewards lead conservation efforts<p><br /></p><header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"></header><div class="entry" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px;"><figure class="thumbnail pull-right" style="border-radius: 0px; border: none; box-sizing: border-box; float: right; line-height: 1.42857; margin: 0px 0px 20px 34px; padding: 0px; position: relative; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out; width: 288px; z-index: 9999;"><a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/823473" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear;"><div class="img-wrapper" style="background: rgb(241, 241, 241); border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: 288px; text-align: center; white-space: nowrap; width: 288px;"><img alt="Caribou Herd" src="https://earimediaprodweb.azurewebsites.net/Api/v1/Multimedia/815055ff-4477-4476-b9df-7e71e140f358/Rendition/low-res/Content/Public" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: auto; max-height: 272px; max-width: 272px; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" /> </div></a><figcaption class="caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">IMAGE: IN PARTNERSHIP WITH MANY ORGANIZATIONS AND GOVERNMENTS, A NEW INDIGENOUS-LED CONSERVATION INITIATIVE HAS HELPED IMPROVE A KLINSE-ZA CARIBOU POPULATION.</span> <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/823473" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; font-weight: 600; text-decoration-line: none; text-transform: none; transition: all 0.1s linear;">view <span class="no-break-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; white-space: nowrap;">more <span class="fa fa-angle-right" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-family: FontAwesome; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1; text-rendering: auto;"></span></span></a></p><p class="credit" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #aaaaaa; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">CREDIT: UBC OKANAGAN</p></figcaption></figure><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Despite recovery efforts from federal and provincial governments, caribou populations across Canada continue to decline, largely due to human activity.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">But as a new UBC Okanagan study finds, in central British Columbia there is one herd of mountain caribou, the Klinse-Za, whose numbers are going in the opposite direction—all thanks to a collaborative recovery effort led by West Moberly First Nations and Saulteau First Nations.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">In partnership with many organizations and governments, the Indigenous-led conservation initiative paired short-term recovery actions such as predator reduction and caribou guardians at maternal pens, with ongoing work to secure landscape-level protection in an effort to create a self-sustaining caribou population.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Their efforts paid off.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Dr. Clayton Lamb, a Liber Ero Fellow, along with Carmen Richter, a biology master’s student, and Dr. Adam T. Ford, Canada Research Chair in Wildlife Restoration Ecology, conduct research in the <a href="https://science.ok.ubc.ca/" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear;">Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science</a>. Their latest study shows Klinse-Za caribou numbers have nearly tripled in under a decade.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“We have an Indigenous-led conservation effort to thank for averting the looming extinction of this herd,” says Dr. Lamb. “The population was declining rapidly—a West Moberly Elder once described the herd as a ‘sea of caribou,’ but by 2013 it had declined to only 38 animals.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Today, the herd count is more than 110 and numbers continue to rise.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“This work provides an innovative, community-led, paradigm shift to conservation in Canada,” Dr. Lamb says. “While Indigenous Peoples have been actively stewarding landscapes for a long time, this approach is new in the level of collaboration among western scientists and Indigenous Peoples to create positive outcomes on the land and put an endangered species on the path to recovery.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Richter, who is a Saulteau First Nations member, says Indigenous communities have really come together for the good of the caribou.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“We are working hard to recover these caribou. Each year, community members pick bags and bags of lichen to feed the mother caribou in the pen while other members live up at the top of the mountain with the animals. One day, we hope to return the herds to a sustainable size,” she says.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Though the partnership has yielded great success, Dr. Ford is the first to acknowledge that more time and effort will be needed to fully recover the Klinse-Za.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“This work is also an important part of decolonizing the mindset of conservation, which has historically worked to exclude the views of Indigenous Peoples,” he adds.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">With caribou declines exceeding 40 per cent in recent decades across Canada, many populations have already been lost. But Dr. Ford insists there is a brighter path forward, and this study proves it.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“This is truly an unprecedented success and signals the critical role that Indigenous Peoples can play in conservation,” he says. “I hope this success opens doors to collaborative stewardship among other communities and agencies. We can accomplish so much more when working together.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">This study was co-produced by western scientists and members of West Moberly First Nations and Saulteau First Nations. The work was recently published in <a href="https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/eap.2581" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear;" target="_blank"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Ecological Applications</em></a> and is supported by a companion manuscript in <a href="https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/eap.2580" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear;" target="_blank"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Ecological Applications</em></a> exploring the expeditious population growth.</p><hr class="hidden-xs hidden-sm" style="border-bottom: 0px; border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top-style: solid; box-sizing: content-box; height: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px;" /><div class="featured_image" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; position: relative;"><div class="details" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><div class="well" style="background: none; border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">JOURNAL</h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 5px 0px 0px;">Ecological Applications</p></div><div class="well" style="background: none; border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">DOI</h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 5px 0px 0px;"><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/eap.2581" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear;" target="_blank">10.1002/eap.2581 <span class="fa fa-sign-out" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-family: FontAwesome; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1; text-rendering: auto;"></span></a></p></div><div class="well" style="background: none; border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 0px; border-right: none; border-top: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 40px; min-height: 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13.5px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><br /></h4></div></div></div></div>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-22773791119319966182022-03-22T05:42:00.007-07:002022-03-22T05:42:38.011-07:00 Tree cover helps gray foxes coexist with coyotes in the country<p><br /></p><header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div class="toolbar hidden-print hidden-search" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;">As coyotes have spread outside their native range into the eastern United States, they’ve been known to harass and kill North Carolina’s two native species of fox. A new study finds that preserving tree cover may be essential in helping the gray fox survive with coyotes in rural areas, probably because of the fox’s unusual ability to climb trees.</div></header><div class="entry" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">In the study, researchers used camera traps to find out where gray foxes coexist with coyotes in suburban, rural or wild areas of North Carolina. Surprisingly, they found gray foxes can coexist with coyotes in suburban forest fragments. However, in rural zones, they avoid areas where coyotes live that lack adequate tree cover.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“Coyotes are well known to persecute smaller foxes,” said study co-author Roland Kays, research associate professor at North Carolina State University and director of the NC Museum of Natural Sciences Biodiversity & Earth Observation Lab. “They go out of their way, more than you see in other interactions between species, to really bully, chase and kill the smaller foxes. There is some reason for concern if this species is going to survive. How is that going to happen in an urban environment where you also have people?”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Coyotes have spread across North America from their native range in parts of the western United States, taking advantage of the fact that larger predators – such as cougars and wolves – aren’t found in most of the eastern U.S. anymore.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“The general trend has been a decline in all carnivores, but there are some exceptions, and the coyote is one of the big exceptions,” Kays said.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Researchers wanted to know how coyotes might impact where native species like the gray fox are now found – especially since urbanization could affect how the two species interact by fragmenting their habitats and disrupting food sources.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“Foxes are fairly common in urban areas, perhaps in part because coyote numbers are relatively low,” said the study’s lead author Arielle Parsons, postdoctoral research associate at NC State. “In the Midwest and western United States, there are indications of ‘apparent decline’ in fox populations concurrent with coyote population increases. We don’t know if it’s a true decline yet, but there’s evidence it is.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The researchers used wildlife photos taken by volunteers to figure out where foxes and coyotes coexist. The photos came from 915 motion-sensitive cameras that volunteers placed in yards, forest fragments and open areas in suburbs, dense suburbs, rural and wild areas. Researchers used the photos to develop a model of whether the two species are likely to be found together, and at what times.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">From 347 pictures of coyotes and 943 pictures of gray foxes, they found that the two species are most likely to be found together in areas of high housing density and low forest cover – i.e, the suburbs. Coyotes were generally less likely to live in high density housing areas than the gray fox.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“These two species were more likely to use the same sites in suburban areas, especially small forested wood lots,” Parsons said. “We expected them to use these wood lots at different times to avoid each other, but actually we found that they use these suburban forest fragments at the same time.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The researchers hypothesized that they could coexist in the suburbs because coyotes are just moving through, not establishing territories, and there are still relatively few of them.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“If they’re just moving through, they may not be as prone to direct competition, or bullying of the gray foxes, or their movements are hard for the gray foxes to predict,” Parsons said. “We also think gray foxes might not have a good way to avoid coyotes consistently in suburbs, since habitat is scarce, or avoidance isn’t necessary given abundant suburban resources.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">In rural areas, the two species were less likely to be seen together. However, gray foxes were more likely to inhabit a site as tree cover increased.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“Gray foxes are very good at climbing trees; they have sharp claws,” Kays said. “They’re one of the only dog relatives that can climb trees. Coyotes can’t. It could be that climbing trees helps them deal with coyotes.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Researchers also saw a slight shift in the gray foxes’ timing, with the gray foxes more likely to be nocturnal around coyotes. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Overall, researchers said findings for rural areas suggest gray foxes could be at risk in areas with few houses and little tree cover.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“In rural areas, where we’re seeing gray foxes spatially and temporally avoid the coyotes, that’s where we could see some impact on the gray fox population,” Parsons said. “It could mean the coyote is outcompeting, bullying or even killing gray foxes there. A strong competitive relationship may result in gray foxes not being able to access high quality areas, forcing them to establish themselves elsewhere where resources may not be as abundant. That could be a mechanism behind a decline.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">They found an important benchmark of tree cover is important for gray foxes in rural areas: Tree cover in more than 50% of a 1-kilometer radius resulted in gray foxes being more likely to occupy a site.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“Enhancing and preserving tree cover as much as we can is going to be beneficial for gray foxes,” Parsons said.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Researchers said another takeaway is that humans can impact how species are able to adapt and coexist.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“There are things we can do to change the ways wildlife species are able to adapt to human-dominated environments,” Parsons said. “Reducing habitat fragmentation and preserving forest and green spaces can help enhance the ability for these species to coexist.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The relationship is evolving over time, they added, and could change. Researchers are continuing to study the populations of the two species over the long term.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">The study, “The effect of urbanization on spatiotemporal interactions between gray foxes and coyotes,” was published online in <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Ecosphere</em> on March 20, 2022. It was authored by Kays, Parsons, Kenneth Keller, Christopher Rota, Stephanie Schuttler and Joshua Millspaugh. The study was funded by the National Science Foundation through grants 1232442 and 1319293 and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px; text-align: center;">-oleniacz-</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">Note to editors</span>: The abstract follows.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">“The effect of urbanization on spatiotemporal interactions between gray foxes and coyotes.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">Authors</span>: Arielle Parsons, Kenneth Keller, Christopher Rota, Stephanie Schuttler, Joshua Millspaugh and Roland Kays.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">Published</span> online in <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Ecosphere</em> on March 20, 2022.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px 15px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">DOI</span>: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.3993" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear;" target="_blank">10.1002/ecs2.3993</a></p></div>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6467206065245630373.post-36345695359544809342022-02-02T15:02:00.001-08:002022-02-02T15:02:03.033-08:00 Public conservation voting on restoring gray wolves to Colorado<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Author contact:</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> </span><a href="https://fieberg-lab.cfans.umn.edu/people/mark-ditmer" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear;">Mark Ditmer</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">(</span><a href="mailto:mark.ditmer@gmail.com" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear;">mark.ditmer@gmail.com</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">)</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Over 3 million voters in Colorado recently weighed in on Proposition 114, a ballot measure to restore the gray wolf to its former range within the state. Previous public opinion polls suggested widespread support for wolf restoration, but the proposition passed with only a slim margin (50.9% of the total vote), and according to new research from Colorado State University scientists, there was a strong relationship between support for the ballot initiative and political support for the Democratic candidate for president in the 2020 election. Additionally, areas closer to proposed wolf restoration areas showed less support for the ballot initiative. Without considering presidential votes, there was a positive relationship between educational attainment and support for wolf restoration. However, when accounting for presidential votes, the team found that voters for President Biden in precincts with lower levels of education had relatively higher levels of support for wolf restoration than voters in precincts with higher educational attainment.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Previous studies have explored the relationships between demographics, livelihood, and self-reported attitudes and beliefs, but few have examined how these factors correspond to actual public behavior, i.e. voting. </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 5px 0px 15px;">Read the article: <a href="https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/eap.2532" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0088cc; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s linear;">Socio-ecological drivers of public conservation voting: restoring gray wolves to Colorado, USA.</a></p>Jonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.com0