Conservation projects subscribing to a community-based paradigm have predominated in the 21st century. We examined the context in which the phrase was coined and traced its growth over time. Communitybased conservation first appeared in the literature in the early 1990s; but grew little until after the 5th World Parks Congress in 2003. Thereafter, publications describing community-based conservation approaches increased exponentially. The conference theme was Benefits Beyond Boundaries, and its goal was to provide an economic model based on revenue accrued from conservation fundraising and ecotourism to support ecosystems, wildlife, and people, particularly in the Global South. Such models tended not to incorporate, as a core principle, the heritage of local human communities. Human heritage varies substantially over time and space making generalization of conservation principles across scales challenging. Pitfalls that have grown out of the community-based conservation approaches in the Global South include fortress conservation, conservation militarism, consumptive and nonconsumptive ecotourism, and whiz-bang solutions. We propose 10 tenets in a human heritage-centered conservation framework (e.g., engage in conservation practices using local languages, thoughtfully propose and apply solutions consistent with human heritage, provide clear professional development pathways for individuals from local communities, and promote alternative revenue-generating programs centered in local communities, among others). Progressive philosophies can derive from authentic and ethical integration of local communities in conservation practice.

Foundational work has examined adaptive social behavior in animals in relation to the costs and benefits of group living. Within this context, a “group” of animals represents an organizational unit that is integral to the study of animal ecology and evolution. Definitions of animal group sizes are often subjective with considerable variability within and across species. However, investigations of both the extent and implications of such variability in the estimation of animal group sizes are currently lacking. Selecting ungulates as a case study, we conducted a literature review to assess prevailing practices used to determine group sizes among terrestrial Cetartiodactyla and Perissodactyla. Via this process, we examined group size definitions for 61 species across 171 peer‐reviewed studies published between 1962 and 2018. These studies quantified group sizes via estimation of ungulate aggregations in space and time. Spatial estimates included a nearest neighbor distance ranging from 1.4 m to 1,000 m, and this variation was partially explained by a weak positive correlation (| r | = .4, p < .003) with the body size of the ungulate research subjects. The temporal extent over which group size was estimated was even broader, ranging from three minutes to 24 hr. The considerable variability in ungulate group size estimation that we observed complicates efforts to not only compare and replicate studies but also to evaluate underlying theories of group living. We recommend that researchers: (a) clearly describe the spatiotemporal extents over which they define ungulate group sizes, (b) highlight foundational empirical and ecological rationale for these extents, and (c) seek to align such extents among individual species so as to facilitate cross‐system comparisons of ungulate group size dynamics. We believe an integrative approach to ungulate group size estimation would readily facilitate replication, comparability, and evaluation of competing hypotheses examining the tradeoffs of animal sociality.

Understanding how giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis) communicate is a topic that has intrigued biologists, ecologists, and society for many years. Despite this interest, communication remains one of the most understudied aspects of giraffe ecology. We reviewed published papers that referenced giraffe communication across olfactory, visual, and auditory dimensions. We found 21 studies, published between 1958 and 2018, that referenced the ways in which giraffes communicate. Ten of these studies described giraffe vocal signals and possibilities for vocal communication among giraffes. Giraffes have been reported to produce infrasonic, hisses, and low humming vocalizations. We found five studies that evaluated giraffe olfaction with implications for communication. Eleven studies suggested that giraffes have high visual capabilities with high dependence on sight for communication. From this evidence, we appreciate that giraffes use multimodal signals to convey vital information to each other. Nevertheless, we found that the inferences made about giraffe communication among these studies are primarily derived from opportunistic observations. Thus, our review highlights that communication remains a highly understudied component of giraffe behavior and ecology. We recommend that further studies seek to identify the ways in which visual, auditory, and olfactory signals facilitate communication among giraffes.analyses (e.g. Ishengoma, Agaba & Cavener, 2017). Consequently, fundamental information relating to the ways in which giraffes communicate remains elusive. For example, it is presently unclear exactly how giraffes find one another and the factors that modulate the fission-fusion aspects of their social behavior.Communication is vital to animal ecology in that it fosters inter-and intra-species interactions, helps to maintain social cohesion, facilitates fundamental behaviors such as mate choice, predator avoidance, and foraging, all of which affect survival and reproduction (Endler, 1993;Rendall, Owren & Ryan, 2009;Kaplan, 2014). Thus, a robust understanding of giraffe ecology is incomplete without an appreciation of the means, role, and context by which individuals among this species communicate. A review of the information on giraffe communication is therefore warranted. Here, we conducted a literature review to examine published studies referencing giraffe communication across olfactory, visual, and auditory dimensions. We describe what is known of these dimensions at present and codify potential avenues for future giraffe communication research.

In promoting coexistence, sympatric species often partition shared resources along spatio-temporal domains. Similarly sized and phylogenetically close species, for instance, partition the times of day in which they are active to limit interference competition. Given that variation in species body mass has evolutionary underpinnings, species activity levels (time spent active in a 24-h daily cycle) within animal communities might be structured by phylogeny. However, few studies have tested this hypothesis across animal communities, and none among medium-sized to large mammals. We quantified the relative contributions of phylogeny and body mass in predicting activity levels in a community of 22 sympatric mammal species in Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda. We show that phylogeny is a stronger predictor of species activity levels than body mass. Our findings provide empirical evidence for the phylogenetic structuring of mammal activity in diverse communities. More broadly, our results suggest that evolutionary relationships mask allometry in predicting species traits in diverse animal communities.