Evaluating policy-relevant surrogate taxa for biodiversity conservation: a case study from British Columbia, Canada

Falconer, Sarah; Ford, Adam T.

doi:10.1139/cjz-2019-0178

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…In turn, such information could expand the scope of management decision-making to incorporate disease risk for humans or other wildlife species (Rohr et al 2020). Deeper knowledge of the distributions, habitat associations, and dynamics of a larger pool of species carries many other potential benefits, such as improved delineation of biodiversity hot spots (Falconer and Ford 2020) and better understanding of how different natural or anthropogenic forces structure biodiversity patterns. by intimidating prey and reducing their foraging efficiency (Brown and Kotler 2004).…”

Section: Example 3 Expanding Biological Extentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 2020 ). Deeper knowledge of the distributions, habitat associations, and dynamics of a larger pool of species carries many other potential benefits, such as improved delineation of biodiversity hot spots (Falconer and Ford 2020 ) and better understanding of how different natural or anthropogenic forces structure biodiversity patterns.…”

Section: Example 3 Expanding Biological Extentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Snapshot Wisconsin: networking community scientists and remote sensing to improve ecological monitoring and management

Townsend

Clare

Liu

et al. 2021

Ecological Applications

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Biological data collection is entering a new era. Community science, satellite remote sensing (SRS), and local forms of remote sensing (e.g., camera traps and acoustic recordings) have enabled biological data to be collected at unprecedented spatial and temporal scales and resolution. There is growing interest in developing observation networks to collect and synthesize data to improve broad‐scale ecological monitoring, but no examples of such networks have emerged to inform decision‐making by agencies. Here, we present the implementation of one such jurisdictional observation network (JON), Snapshot Wisconsin, which links synoptic environmental data derived from SRS to biodiversity observations collected continuously from a trail camera network to support management decision‐making. We use several examples to illustrate that Snapshot Wisconsin improves the spatial, temporal, and biological resolution and extent of information available to support management, filling gaps associated with traditional monitoring and enabling consideration of new management strategies. JONs like Snapshot Wisconsin further strengthen monitoring inference by contributing novel lines of evidence useful for corroboration or integration. SRS provides environmental context that facilitates inference, prediction, and forecasting, and ultimately helps managers formulate, test, and refine conceptual models for the monitored systems. Although these approaches pose challenges, Snapshot Wisconsin demonstrates that expansive observation networks can be tractably managed by agencies to support decision making, providing a powerful new tool for agencies to better achieve their missions and reshape the nature of environmental decision‐making.

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Section: Example 3 Expanding Biological Extentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Example 3 Expanding Biological Extentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Snapshot Wisconsin: networking community scientists and remote sensing to improve ecological monitoring and management

Townsend

Clare

Liu

et al. 2021

Ecological Applications

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show abstract

“…Due to their strong selection for intact, mature forest habitats, caribou have been described as an umbrella species for multiple biodiversity values including many species reliant on old‐growth forests (Bichet et al, 2016 ; Campbell et al, 2020 ; Falconer & Ford, 2020 ). Mature forests are being rapidly converted to early seral conditions across Canada, so it is not surprising that caribou populations are also declining by up to 50%–60% in the boreal and mountain populations (Environment Canada, 2012 , 2014 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Indigenous‐led conservation: Pathways to recovery for the nearly extirpatedKlinse‐Zamountain caribou

Lamb

Willson

Richter

et al. 2022

Ecological Applications

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Indigenous Peoples around the northern hemisphere have long relied on caribou for subsistence and for ceremonial and community purposes. Unfortunately, despite recovery efforts by federal and provincial agencies, caribou are currently in decline in many areas across Canada. In response to recent and dramatic declines of mountain caribou populations within their traditional territory, West Moberly First Nations and Saulteau First Nations (collectively, the "Nations") came together to create a new vision for caribou recovery on the lands they have long stewarded and shared. The Nations focused on the Klinse-Za subpopulation, which had once encompassed so many caribou that West Moberly Elders remarked that they were "like bugs on the landscape." The Klinse-Za caribou declined from ~250 in the 1990s to only 38 in 2013, rendering Indigenous harvest of caribou nonviable and infringing on treaty rights to a subsistence livelihood. In collaboration with many groups and governments, this Indigenous-led conservation initiative paired short-term population recovery actions, predator reduction and maternal penning, with long-term habitat protection in an effort to create a self-sustaining caribou population. Here, we review these recovery actions and the promising evidence that the abundance of Klinse-Za caribou has more than doubled from 38 animals in 2013 to 101 in 2021, representing rapid population growth in response to recovery actions. With looming extirpation averted, the Nations focused efforts on securing a landmark conservation agreement in 2020 that protects caribou habitat over a 7986-km 2 area. The Agreement provides habitat protection for >85% of the Klinse-Za subpopulation (up from only 1.8% protected pre-conservation agreement) and affords moderate protection for neighboring caribou subpopulations (29%-47% of subpopulation areas, up from 0%-20%). This Indigenous-led conservation initiative has set both the

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Species and ecological communities as management surrogates for threatened biodiversity

Olivares-Rojas,

Cook,

Ward

et al. 2024

Biodivers Conserv

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In the face of the ongoing biodiversity crisis and limited conservation funding, surrogate approaches have become a valuable tool to represent biodiversity. Management surrogates are those that indirectly benefit an ecological system or species by representing the management requirements of co-occurring biodiversity. Recent findings highlight the cost-effective potential of surrogate species in managing threatened species, however, evaluating higher levels of biodiversity as management surrogates remains unexplored. Here, we sought to maximize conservation outcomes for threatened species and threatened ecological communities (TECs) by prioritizing management based on overlapping distributions, threats, and costs. We describe a prioritization framework for identifying TECs that could serve as cost-effective surrogates, and compare it with prioritizing threatened species only or both species and TECs. We show that when the objective is to maximize benefits for threatened species, a community approach performs poorly due to limited geographic overlap and high costs, while prioritizing species returned 7.5 times more benefits delivered to species under the same budget. Yet, if the objective is to maximize benefits across species and TECs simultaneously, a combined approach including both as surrogates delivers the greatest benefit for the same costs as a species-only approach. Range sizes and taxonomic groups significantly influenced the priority list, with threatened invertebrates and TECs of smaller ranges more likely to be selected as surrogates. Overall, this study emphasizes the importance of incorporating accurate data on factors such as threats and costs for identifying effective management surrogates, and highlights the potential benefits of prioritizing across multiple biodiversity features.

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Evaluating policy-relevant surrogate taxa for biodiversity conservation: a case study from British Columbia, Canada

Cited by 4 publications

References 62 publications

Snapshot Wisconsin: networking community scientists and remote sensing to improve ecological monitoring and management

Snapshot Wisconsin: networking community scientists and remote sensing to improve ecological monitoring and management

Indigenous‐led conservation: Pathways to recovery for the nearly extirpatedKlinse‐Zamountain caribou

Species and ecological communities as management surrogates for threatened biodiversity

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