Abstract. Does ecotourism contribute towards conservation of threatened species and habitats or is it just a marketing ploy of the tourism industry? Using 251 case studies on ecotourism from the literature, I looked at the distribution of case studies over continents, habitats and flagship species types and what factors influenced whether an ecotourism regime was perceived as ecologically sustainable by authors. Over 50% of ecotourism case studies were reported from Africa and Central America. The overall distribution of ecotourism case studies did not reflect vertebrate endemism, nor overall tourism distribution in terms of tourist numbers and receipts. There were significant differences between continents and habitats with regard to the proportion of sustainable case studies: ecotourism is perceived to be less sustainable in South America and Asia, and in island and mountain habitats. The type of flagship species also influenced whether ecotourism was classified as sustainable or not: ecotourism with no flagship species was rarely classified as sustainable while charismatic bird and mammal species were associated with a higher probability of sustainability. In a multivariate analysis, flagship species type and local community involvement were important predictors of sustainability in ecotourism. Detailed a priori planning, local involvement and control measures were perceived by authors of case studies to increase the success of ecotourism in conservation. They also perceived that ecotourism can only be an effective conservation tool under certain conditions. If these are met, the evidence indicates that ecotourism can make a contribution to conservation.

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1.The concept of site-dependent population regulation combines the ideas of Ideal Free Distribution-type of habitat settlement and density dependence in a vital rate mediated by habitat heterogeneity. The latter is also known as habitat heterogeneity hypothesis. Site-dependent population regulation hypothesis predicts that increasing population density should lead to inhabitation of increasingly poor territories and decreasing per capita population growth rate. An alternative mechanism for population regulation in a territorial breeding system is interference competition. However, this would be expected to cause a more even decrease in individual success with increasing density than site-dependent regulation. 2. We tested these ideas using long-term (1975-99) population data from a goshawk Accipiter gentilis population in Eastern Westphalia, Germany. 3. Goshawk territory occupancy patterns and reproduction parameters support predictions of site-dependent population regulation: territories that were occupied more often and earlier had a higher mean brood size. Fecundity did not decrease with increasing density in best territories. 4. Using time-series modelling, we also showed that the most parsimonious model explaining per capita population growth rate included annual mean habitat quality, weather during the chick rearing and autumn period and density as variables. This model explained 63% of the variation in per capita growth rate. The need for including habitat quality in the time-series model provides further support for the idea of site-dependent population regulation in goshawk.

Summary1. Age at first breeding has a large influence on fitness and hence is crucial to the evolution of life-history strategies. Goshawks Accipiter gentilis start breeding aged 1-4 years. Using 30 years of data and both lifetime reproductive success (LRS) and λ ind as a fitness estimate for 74 female goshawks, I showed that the optimal age at first reproduction was 3 years in this population. 2. Females that started to breed earlier had lower LRS and λ ind , not because of reduced life span, but because of lower reproduction at early ages. 3. The constraint hypothesis, which states that foraging or other skills improve with age was the most likely explanation for the higher reproduction with increasing age. 4. Incorporating habitat heterogeneity provided the mechanism that explained not only the fitness cost to early maturity, but also why this cost was heterogeneous. Females starting to breed aged 1 suffered a very high fitness cost if they were in a bad-quality territory, but fitness costs were small when they were in a good-quality territory. This explains why I found evidence for a nonlinear selection pressure on age at first breeding. 5. Population density also affected whether a female started to breed early or not: over the study period, population density increased and the percentage of females starting to breed aged 1 decreased. 6. The optimal age at first breeding seems to be a trait affected by a complex interplay between cost and benefits of early reproduction mediated by habitat heterogeneity and population density.

Adult sex ratio (ASR, the proportion of males in the adult population) is a central concept in population and evolutionary biology, and is also emerging as a major factor influencing mate choice, pair bonding and parental cooperation in both human and non-human societies. However, estimating ASR is fraught with difficulties stemming from the effects of spatial and temporal variation in the numbers of males and females, and detection/capture probabilities that differ between the sexes. Here, we critically evaluate methods for estimating ASR in wild animal populations, reviewing how recent statistical advances can be applied to handle some of these challenges. We review methods that directly account for detection differences between the sexes using counts of unmarked individuals (observed, trapped or killed) and counts of marked individuals using mark-recapture models. We review a third class of methods that do not directly sample the number of males and females, but instead estimate the sex ratio indirectly using relationships that emerge from demographic measures, such as survival, age structure, reproduction and assumed dynamics. We recommend that detection-based methods be used for estimating ASR in most situations, and point out that studies are needed that compare different ASR estimation methods and control for sex differences in dispersal.This article is part of the themed issue 'Adult sex ratios and reproductive decisions: a critical re-examination of sex differences in human and animal societies'.