Efficient Mammal Biodiversity Surveys for Ecological Restoration Monitoring

Abstract

Efficient biodiversity surveys are critical for successful restoration monitoring and management. We studied the effect of varying sampling effort on the observed species richness of surveys of small mammals (trapping transects), bats (passive acoustic detection), and medium to large mammals (trail cameras). Field studies provided mammalian biodiversity data for 4 bottomland hardwood restoration sites in northeastern Indiana. Subsampled data were used to simulate monitoring surveys with a range of levels of effort. We then used hierarchical Bayesian nonlinear mixed models to analyze how different components of sampling effort affected observed species richness, a key monitoring outcome. We found that observed small mammal richness increased with the increased number of transects in a survey, while observed bat and medium to large mammal richness increased with the increased duration of sampling. Variation between sites was important for the observed richness of small mammals and bats but not for medium to large mammals. The key driver of richness observed in simulated surveys was related to the spatial scale at which target fauna interact with the habitat, with decreasing richness accompanied by a greater spatial scale of animal–habitat interactions. Our findings suggest taxon‐specific recommendations for efficiently quantifying the mammalian diversity of managed sites. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2020;00:1–13. © 2020 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC)

Biodiversity of the Regional Landscape Park Samara Plavni within the first large reservoir in Europe Biodiversity of the Regional Landscape Park Samara Plavni within the first large reservoir in Europe

“…The species composition of birds was determined visually using optical instruments, according to singing, and existing nests (Tomialojc, 1976(Tomialojc, , 1980Kuchynska, 2005). The study of mammals was carried out by traces and visually, murine rodents and small insectivores -using traps (Hoffmann et al, 2010;Torre et al, 2018;Green et al, 2020). According to the zoning of the Samara Plavni Regional Landscape Park, the following parts are distinguished: a reserved zone, a recreational zone, a zone of regulated recreation and an economic zone.…”

Applications and advances in acoustic monitoring for infectious disease epidemiology

“…Acoustic methods can provide new opportunities to integrate data at scale into risk modelling and long-term infectious disease surveillance. Acoustic data have already been used to assess the impact of human-modified landscapes on biodiversity [51][52][53][54] and to understanding the impact of climate change on species distributions [55], particularly salient given the rapidity of habitat loss and critical landscape change. Risks of disease emergence or transmission from wildlife to humans are also understood to be affected by changing climates, urbanisation, and landscape modification [56], and there has been considerable progress in incorporating meteorological and environmental information to improve surveillance and early warning systems (EWSs) for climate-sensitive infectious diseases [57][58][59].…”

“…Non-human primate dieoff during Yellow Fever outbreaks in humans and primates [24] Detection of fruit bats, reservoir for Nipah Virus, roosting near livestock [22] Human movement patterns and land use during key biting times of zoonotic malaria vector mosquitos [53] Seasonal peaks in Marburg Virus circulation and human infection risk coinciding with Rousettus aegyptiacus bat breeding season [40] Habitat fragmentation and biodiversity loss increasing risk of novel infectious disease emergence [76] Detection of macaques in human settlements [23] Detection of humans in forest edges [51] Example response or control measure collected and used to parameterise rapidly changing risk for disease spillover. With improvements in on-board analysis and cloud-based data processing, acoustic monitoring can now provide long-term monitoring and real-time alerts of human activity, including illegal logging and poaching [60].…”

Visitor Use and Activities Detected Using Trail Cameras at Forest Restoration Sites

“…Prior to restoration, both sites were in row crop agriculture that provided food provisioning services but little in terms of other ecosystem services. The following is a brief description of the sites; complete site descriptions were provided by Kunz et al (2019) and Green et al (2020).…”

“…With restoration of vegetative communities and soil quality come increased flood-water processing and retention, and recovery of wildlife communities. Documentation of ecological changes, through post-restoration monitoring (Kunz et al 2019, Green et al 2020, demonstrates that progress toward restoration goals is proceeding as planned or, alternatively, exposes deviations away from goals requiring course corrections to remedy. As restored sites mature, they become attractive to human use, with accommodations made for visitors such as parking areas and walking trails.…”