SummaryForest edges influence more than half the world’s forests and contribute to worldwide declines in biodiversity and ecosystem functions. However, predicting these declines is challenging in heterogeneous fragmented landscapes. We assembled an unmatched global dataset on species responses to fragmentation and developed a new statistical approach for quantifying edge impacts in heterogeneous landscapes to quantify edge-determined changes in abundance of 1673 vertebrate species. We show that 85% of species’ abundances are affected, either positively or negatively, by forest edges. Forest core species, which were more likely to be listed as threatened by the IUCN, only reached peak abundances at sites farther than 200-400 m from sharp high-contrast forest edges. Smaller-bodied amphibians, larger reptiles and medium-sized non-volant mammals experienced a larger reduction in suitable habitat than other forest core species. Our results highlight the pervasive ability of forest edges to restructure ecological communities on a global scale.

The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used this evidence base to develop global and regional statistical models of how local biodiversity responds to these measures. We describe and make freely available this 2016 release of the database, containing more than 3.2 million records sampled at over 26,000 locations and representing over 47,000 species. We outline how the database can help in answering a range of questions in ecology and conservation biology. To our knowledge, this is the largest and most geographically and taxonomically representative database of spatial comparisons of biodiversity that has been collated to date; it will be useful to researchers and international efforts wishing to model and understand the global status of biodiversity.

Tourism accounts for 9% of global GDP and comprises 1.1 billion tourist arrivals per annum. Visits to wildlife tourist attractions (WTAs) may account for 20–40% of global tourism, but no studies have audited the diversity of WTAs and their impacts on the conservation status and welfare of subject animals. We scored these impacts for 24 types of WTA, visited by 3.6–6 million tourists per year, and compared our scores to tourists’ feedback on TripAdvisor. Six WTA types (impacting 1,500–13,000 individual animals) had net positive conservation/welfare impacts, but 14 (120,000–340,000 individuals) had negative conservation impacts and 18 (230,000–550,000 individuals) had negative welfare impacts. Despite these figures only 7.8% of all tourist feedback on these WTAs was negative due to conservation/welfare concerns. We demonstrate that WTAs have substantial negative effects that are unrecognised by the majority of tourists, suggesting an urgent need for tourist education and regulation of WTAs worldwide.

Human-bear conflicts cause annoyance, financial losses, injuries, and even death to people. In poorer parts of the world, conflicts with bears can affect local economies. Retaliation against bears may threaten the future of small, isolated populations. Our survey of the world's bear experts revealed that the problem is worsening in terms of severity of conflicts and their impact on bear conservation on all four continents inhabited by bears. However, the main drivers of conflict, and its manifestations, differ among bear species. We reviewed human-bear conflict management plans from which we identified 10 categories of mitigating interventions that together comprise a ubiquitous bear conflict management toolbox. Within this toolbox, the peer-reviewed literature indicates heavy reliance on education and physical barriers for conflict mitigation. In customizing these general approaches to local circumstances, it is important to be mindful of starkly varying geopolitical and social circumstances. There is a pressing need to improve transfer of knowledge from places with active empirical research on mitigation (especially North America), and adapting methodologies to other parts of the world. We saw little evidence of evaluation and adaptive management in the conflict plans. Failure to mitigate conflicts may reduce society's tolerance of bears and diminish conservation efforts.

a b s t r a c tZoonotic diseases cause millions of deaths every year. Diseases such as Ebola, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), and avian influenza cause economic losses at the global level and jeopardize diplomatic relations between countries. As wildlife are the source of at least 70% of all emerging diseases and given the on-going concerns associated with wildlife trade as a disease transmission mechanism, we provide a 'global snapshot' of the legal trade in live wild animals and take stock of the potential health risks that it poses to global human health. Our analysis showed that 11,569,796 individual live wild animals, representing 1316 different species were exported from 189 different countries between 2012 and 2016. China was the largest exporter of live mammals (with 98,979 animals representing 58.7% of global trade). Nicaragua was the largest exporter of live amphibians (with 122,592 animals representing 53.8% of global trade). South Africa was the largest exporter of live birds (with 889,607 animals representing 39.2% of global trade). Peru was the largest exporter of live reptiles (with 1,675,490 animals representing 18.8% of global trade). Our analysis showed that mostly the USA and other high-income countries, the largest importers, drive the live animal trade. High-income countries and not the countries where wildlife diseases and pathogens are more likely to occur reported almost all of the disease reports to the World Organisation for Animal Health. Based on our findings, we discuss how maximising trade bans; working on human behaviour change and improving regulatory efforts to improve surveillance will decrease the risk of future pandemics, epidemics and outbreaks.