Temperate grasslands have suffered disproportionally from conversion to cropland, degradation and fragmentation. A large proportion of the world's remaining near-natural grassland is situated in Kazakhstan. We aimed to assess current and emerging threats to steppe and semi-desert biodiversity in Kazakhstan and evaluate conservation research priorities. We conducted a horizon-scanning exercise among conservationists from academia and practice. We first compiled a list of 45 potential threats.These were then ranked by the survey participants according to their perceived severity, the need for research on them, and their novelty.The highest-ranked threats were related to changes in land use (leading to habitat loss and deterioration), direct persecution of wildlife, and rapid infrastructure development due to economic and population growth. Research needs were identified largely in the same areas, and the mean scores of threat severity and research need were highly correlated. Novel threats comprised habitat loss by photovoltaic and wind power stations, climate change and changes in agriculture such as the introduction of biofuels. However, novelty was not correlated with threat severity or research priority, suggesting that the most severe threats are the established ones.Important goals towards more effective steppe and semi-desert conservation in Kazakhstan include more cross-sector collaboration (e.g. by involving stakeholders in conservation and agriculture), greater allocation of funds to under-staffed areas (e.g. protected area management), better representativeness and complementarity in the protected area system and enhanced data collection for wildlife monitoring and threat assessments (including the use of citizen-science databases).

To inform population support measures for the unsustainably hunted Asian houbara Chlamydotis macqueenii (IUCN Vulnerable), we examined potential habitat and landuse effects on nest productivity in the Kyzylkum Desert, Uzbekistan. We monitored 177 nests across different semiarid shrub assemblages (clay-sand and salinity gradients) and a range of livestock densities (0-80 km −2). Nest success (mean 51.4 %, 95 % CI 42.4-60.4 %) was similar across 4 years; predation caused 85 % of those failures for which the cause was known, and only three nests were trampled by livestock. Nesting begins within a few weeks of arrival when food appears scarce, but later nests were more likely to fail owing to the emergence of a key predator, suggesting that foraging conditions on wintering and passage sites may be important for nest productivity. Nest success was similar across three shrub assemblages and was unrelated to landscape rugosity, shrub frequency or livestock density but was greater with taller mean shrub height (range 13-67 cm) within 50 m. Clutch size (mean = 3.2 eggs) and per-egg hatchability in successful nests (87.5 %) did not differ with laying date, shrub assemblage or livestock density. We therefore found no evidence that livestock density reduced nest productivity across the range examined, while differing shrub assemblages appeared to offer similar habitat quality. Asian houbara appear well-adapted to a range of semi-desert habitats and tolerate moderate disturbance by pastoralism. No obvious in situ mitigation measures arise from these findings, leaving regulation and control as the key requirement to render hunting sustainable.

The Sociable Lapwing Vanellus gregarius is a critically endangered species, probably declining from 5000 pairs to 500 pairs in 11 years. Fieldwork was conducted at two sites in Kazakhstan, May–August 2004, to identify causes of the species’ decline. In total, 58 nests and a minimum of 36 broods in 16 colonies were found: colonies consisted of 1–8 nests that were on average 154 m apart, with 2.1 km between colonies. Although classified as biparental, the total proportion of time both parents spent incubating was low (77 ± 2% se, n = 13 nests). Daily survival rates (Mayfield method) were very low during incubation (0.943 ± 0.009 se) but high during the chick stage (0.986 ± 0.004 se); incubation and chick‐stage durations were found to be 28.5 and 29 days, respectively, so that the overall probability of any breeding attempt fledging chicks was 0.124 (0.055–0.274 95% confidence interval). A breeding attempt that produced fledglings, fledged 2.2 ± 0.2 se chicks (n = 26) on average. Observed productivity predicted the population decline over the last 11 years well (using the maximum number of nesting attempts per pair of 1.4 that could have occurred in this study, and assuming an adult and first‐year survival rate of 0.74 and 0.60, respectively, based on the means for Northern Lapwing Vanellus vanellus and Golden Plover Pluvialis apricalia). Nest survival during incubation (controlling for colony effects) may have been longer for nests in predominantly Artemisia rather than grass habitat. Mean nest survival for a colony was higher in areas with more bare ground and more nest predators, suggesting that predators were relatively unimportant in nest (egg or chick) mortality, but was lower in areas with high numbers of cattle, suggesting that trampling was important (64% of known‐cause nest failures, n = 11, were trampled). Nests were preferentially sited in areas of Artemisia, where there was greater dung abundance, and probably shorter vegetation, suggesting that highly grazed vegetation is important for nesting. Chicks preferentially selected areas with a lower percentage of bare ground and possibly taller vegetation, suggesting that more vegetated areas are important for chicks. The results suggest that low egg survival due to nesting in areas of high grazer density may be responsible for the Sociable Lapwing's decline. Although grazers may create suitable vegetation for initial nesting, if those grazers remain at high density as in anthropogenic systems then they may reduce nest survival, probably through trampling. Experimentally maintaining grazing early but reducing it later in the breeding season is the logical first step in managing the species to increase egg survival and so to increase productivity.

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SummaryRealistic population size estimates for waterbirds are crucial for the application of wetland conservation strategies, since the identification of internationally important wetlands is based on local numbers relative to the population size of the respective species. Central Asia is a poorly surveyed region that is situated at the intersection of migration routes that lead waterbirds from Western Siberia to the south-west (South-West Asia, East Africa) and to the south-east (South Asia, India). We calculated waterbird population estimates for the Tengiz-Korgalzhyn region, a large wetland complex in the steppe zone of Central Kazakhstan, based on waterbird surveys conducted between 1999 and 2004. For 20 of 43 species analysed the region supported more than 5% of the relevant flyway populations. Five species occurred with more than 40% of the flyway totals, including the Endangered White-headed Duck Oxyura leucocephala and the Vulnerable Dalmatian Pelican Pelecanus crispus. Peak numbers were recorded in summer and autumn and for most species numbers were more than an order of magnitude lower on spring migration compared with autumn migration. We identified 72 individual sites that held more than 20,000 waterbirds or more than 1% of a particular flyway population at least once. These sites are likely to constitute priorities for conservation. The general conservation status of the region is favourable, since many of the important sites are located within a strict nature reserve. However, outside the reserve hunting, fishing and powerline casualties represent conservation issues that should be monitored more carefully in the future.

Habitat associations and distribution of breeding Sociable Lapwings were examined in 2004–2008 in central Kazakhstan to develop and assess hypotheses relating to the species’ decline and high conservation threat status. At a landscape scale, breeding colonies were strongly positively associated with villages and rivers. Habitat suitability models had very high predictive power and suggested that only 6.6–8.0% of the 30 000‐km2 study area was potentially suitable for Sociable Lapwings. Models developed to describe the spatial distribution of nests in one region of Kazakhstan in one year predicted well the distribution of nests in another region, suggesting good generality. At a colony scale, nests were most likely to be found in the most heavily grazed areas, with a high cover of animal dung and bare ground. Despite the low density of human settlements in the study area, most Sociable Lapwing nests were < 2 km from a village. Patterns of grazing were assessed by fitting GPS loggers to cattle. There was a strong positive correlation around villages between grazing intensity and the density of Sociable Lapwing nests, with clear evidence of a threshold of grazing density that needs to be reached before birds will breed. This high degree of synanthropy, perhaps unique in a critically endangered bird, is likely to result from post‐Soviet changes in steppe management and offers both threats and opportunities to the species’ conservation.

Landscape-scale habitat and land use influences on Asian Houbara Chlamydotis macqueenii (IUCN Vulnerable) remain unstudied, while estimating numbers of this cryptic, low-density, over-hunted species is challenging. In spring 2013, male houbara were recorded at 231 point counts, conducted twice, across a gradient of sheep density and shrub assemblages within 14,300 km 2 of the Kyzylkum Desert, Uzbekistan. Four sets of models related male abundance to: (1) vegetation structure (shrub height and substrate); (2) shrub assemblage; (3) shrub species composition (multidimensional scaling); (4) remote-sensed derived land cover (GLOBCOVER, 4 variables). Each set also incorporated measures of landscape rugosity and sheep density. For each set, multi-model inference was applied to generalised linear mixed models of visit-specific counts that included important detectability covariates and point ID as random effects. Vegetation structure received strongest support, followed by shrub species composition and shrub assemblage, with weakest support for the GLOBCOVER model set. Male houbara numbers were greater with lower mean shrub height, more gravel and flatter surfaces, but were unaffected by sheep density. Male density (mean 0.14 km -2 ) estimated by distance analysis differed substantially among shrub assemblages, being highest in vegetation dominated by Salsola rigida, high in areas of S. arbuscula and Astragalus, respectively, lower in Artemisia and lowest in Calligonum. The study area was estimated to hold 1824 males (CI 1645(CI -2030. The spatial distribution of relative male houbara abundance, predicted from vegetation structure models, had the strongest correspondence with observed numbers in both model calibration and the subsequent year's data. We found no effect of pastoralism on male distribution, but potential effects on nesting females are unknown. Density differences among shrub communities suggest extrapolation to estimate country-or range-wide population size must take into account vegetation composition.