From numbers to ecosystems and biodiversity: A mechanistic approach to monitoring

Section: Roadmap Through This Special Issuementioning

confidence: 99%

The development and application of strategic adaptive management within South African National Parks

Roux

Foxcroft

2011

“…It is important to note however that the challenges associated with reptile sampling, such as low detectability (McGrath et al 2015), may result in underestimations of species richness and occurrences at specific sites. False absences as a result of underestimations can falsely inform on species' performance within monitoring frameworks, including those relating to thresholds of potential concern, and may result in incorrect assignments of conservation priority (Botts et al 2011;Ferreira et al 2011).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With recorded occurrences of these animals already limited, the presence of an assortment of sampling biases within databases further restricts our understanding of these species' distributions and curtails our ability to manage them effectively. For cryptic species such as some species of reptiles (Bates et al 2014;McGrath et al 2015), there is often a distinct lack of high-quality records of these animals' occurrences within their natural environments (Böhm et al 2013;Tolley et al 2016), even within areas specifically designated for conservation (Ferreira et al 2011;Venter et al 2008;Zielinski 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sampling bias in reptile occurrence data for the Kruger National Park

Barends

Pietersen

Zambatis

et al. 2020

o effectively conserve and manage species, it is important to (1) understand how they are spatially distributed across the globe at both broad and fine spatial resolutions and (2) elucidate the determinants of these distributions. However, information pertaining to the distributions of many species remains poor as occurrence data are often scarce or collected with varying motivations, making the resulting patterns susceptible to sampling bias. Exacerbating an already limited quantity of occurrence data with an assortment of biases hinders their effectiveness for research, thus making it important to identify and understand the biases present within species occurrence data sets. We quantitatively assessed occurrence records of 126 reptile species occurring in the Kruger National Park (KNP), South Africa, to quantify the severity of sampling bias within this data set. We collated a data set of 7118 occurrence records from museum, literature and citizen science sources and analysed these at a biologically relevant spatial resolution of 1 km × 1 km. As a result of logistical challenges associated with sampling in KNP, approximately 92% of KNP is data deficient for reptile occurrences at the 1 km × 1 km resolution. Additionally, the spatial coverage of available occurrences varied at species and family levels, and the majority of occurrence records were strongly associated with publicly accessible human infrastructure. Furthermore, we found that sampled areas within KNP were not necessarily ecologically representative of KNP as a whole, suggesting that areas of unique environmental space remain to be sampled. Our findings highlight the need for substantially greater sampling effort for reptiles across KNP and emphasise the need to carefully consider the sampling biases within existing data should these be used for conservation management decision-making. Modelling species distributions could potentially serve as a short-term solution, but a concomitant increase in surveys across the park is needed.Conservation implications: The sampling biases present within KNP reptile occurrence data inhibit the inference of fine-scale species distributions within and across the park, which limits the usage of these data towards meaningfully informing conservation management decisions as applicable to reptile species in KNP.

“…If there is consensus that there are no practical issues with the monitoring, the measurement of the quantified TPC is incorporated into the monitoring programme, which is developed in parallel to this process. This ensures that all monitoring is linked explicitly to TPCs at each level of the objectives hierarchy (see Ferreira et al 2011). The only exception to this is what SANParks scientists refer to as 'background' data, which is data used to interpret models of how the system works.…”

Section: Controllermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet there is also room for developing the conceptual basis of TPCs further (Duncan & Wintle 2008). For example, setting directionality as a prerequisite of a TPC is the central tenet of revisiting TPCs in the SANParks context (Ferreira et al 2011). Directionality can generalise the applicability of TPCs across parks, because well protected parks can have TPCs for which the rate of change in a measure centres on zero, whilst that for degraded parks centres away from zero.…”

Section: Evolution Of the Tpc Conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Advances and challenges in the implementation of strategic adaptive management beyond the Kruger National Park – Making linkages between science and biodiversity management

Gaylard

Ferreira

2011

Self Cite

South African National Parks (SANParks) makes use of strategic adaptive management (SAM) to achieve its primary mandate of biodiversity conservation. This involves an iterative adaptive planning, management and review cycle to ensure appropriate alignment of stakeholder values with conservation objectives, to address the uncertainty inherent in complex social– economic–ecological systems and to learn explicitly whilst doing so. Adaptive management is recognised as the most logical framework for continuous improvement in natural resource management; nevertheless, several challenges in its implementation remain. This paper outlined these challenges and the various modifications to SANParks’ adaptive planning and management process that have emerged during its development. We demonstrated how the establishment of a regular Science–Management Forum provides opportunities for social colearning amongst resource managers and scientists of a particular park, whilst providing other positive spin-offs that mature the SAM process across the organisation. We discussed the use of particular conceptual constructs that clarify the link between monitoring, management requirements and operational endpoints, providing the context within which Thresholds of Potential Concern (TPCs) should be set, prioritised and measured. The evolution of the TPC concept was also discussed in the context of its use by other organisations, whilst recognising its current limitations within SANParks. Finally, we discussed remaining implementation challenges and uncertainties, and suggested a way forward for SAM.Conservation implications: This paper outlined practical methods of implementing SAM in conservation areas, beyond what has already been learnt within, and documented for, the Kruger National Park. It also highlighted several implementation challenges that prove useful to other conservation agencies planning to adopt this approach to managing complex ecosystems.How to cite this article: Gaylard, A. & Ferreira, S., 2011, ‘Advances and challenges in the implementation of strategic adaptive management beyond the Kruger National Park – Making linkages between science and biodiversity management’, Koedoe 53(2), Art. #1005, 8 pages. doi:10.4102/koedoe.v53i2.1005