How expert insight into alpine peatland conservation complements global scientific evidence

Rowland, Jessica A.; Moore, Joslin L.; Walsh, Jessica C.

doi:10.1111/cobi.14081

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Establishing effective management to protect peatlands from burning and enhance recovery postfire will be vital to conserving these vulnerable ecosystems worldwide. Fewer questions focused on invasive species management, suggesting the past strong research focus on this threat has improved our understanding in Australia (Rowland et al, 2023). However, identifying range‐shifting species under climate change was a major concern for Australian experts, and has also been identified as an issue of global concern for mountain ecosystems (e.g., in Europe: Grzybowski & Glińska‐Lewczuk, 2020; Petitpierre et al, 2016).…”

Section: Synthesis and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Setting research priorities for effective management of a threatened ecosystem: Australian alpine and subalpine peatland

Rowland

Walsh

Beitzel

et al. 2023

Conservat Sci and Prac

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Threatened ecosystem conservation requires an understanding of the effectiveness of management and the challenges hindering successful protection and recovery. Bringing together researchers, land managers and policymakers to identify key threats, management needs, and knowledge gaps provides a unified account of the evidence and tools needed to improve threatened ecosystem management. We undertook a research prioritization process for Australian alpine and subalpine peatlands with experts across policy, research, and management. Through individual interviews, structured group discussions, and voting, we generated 25 priority research questions that, if addressed, would enhance our capacity to conserve peatlands. Knowledge gaps spanned four topics: understanding peatland dynamics, impacts of threats, methods to manage these, and the effectiveness of management. Consistent monitoring standards, an open‐access knowledge platform and commitment to long‐term joint research and management were identified as vital. This collaboration enabled development of a shared agenda of research priorities to target knowledge gaps for informing policy and management of threatened alpine peatlands. Our findings substantiate the importance of stronger ongoing collaboration among researchers, land managers and policymakers across jurisdictions to support conservation.

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Section: Synthesis and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Setting research priorities for effective management of a threatened ecosystem: Australian alpine and subalpine peatland

Rowland

Walsh

Beitzel

et al. 2023

Conservat Sci and Prac

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show abstract

“…Clearly, the evidence required to check whether these assumptions are valid (i.e., that the Situation Analysis and Theory of Change are valid) should come from a range of sources including, but not limited to, Indigenous and Local Knowledge, experience, and wisdom of practitioners and partners, scientific studies and syntheses, expert well as fill knowledge gaps in the scientific literature (MacLeod et al, 2022;Rowland et al, 2023). There is therefore growing recognition that evidence that comes in a variety of types and subjects from local and external sources is required to make successful, pragmatic decisions in conservation under challenging time, resource, and cost constraints (Game et al, 2018;Malmer et al, 2020;Schuster et al, 2019;Sutherland et al, 2022;Taper et al, 2021;Tengö et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, local information from diverse sources can be highly relevant and reliable in specific conservation contexts, and considerations of local factors influence the effectiveness, costs, acceptability, and feasibility of actions (Adams & Sandbrook, 2013; Christie, Downey, et al, 2022). Meaningfully involving local communities and partners in conservation decisions has also been shown to add value to local projects and strategies, and ultimately underpin their success (Cote et al, 2021), as well as fill knowledge gaps in the scientific literature (MacLeod et al, 2022; Rowland et al, 2023). There is therefore growing recognition that evidence that comes in a variety of types and subjects from local and external sources is required to make successful, pragmatic decisions in conservation under challenging time, resource, and cost constraints (Game et al, 2018; Malmer et al, 2020; Schuster et al, 2019; Sutherland et al, 2022; Taper et al, 2021; Tengö et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing diverse evidence to improve conservation decision‐making

Christie,

Morgan,

Salafsky

et al. 2023

Conservat Sci and Prac

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Meeting the urgent need to protect and restore ecosystems requires effective decision‐making through wisely considering a range of evidence. However, weighing and assessing evidence to make complex decisions is challenging, particularly when evidence is of diverse types, subjects, and sources, and varies greatly in its quality and relevance. To tackle these challenges, we present the Balance Evidence Assessment Method (BEAM), an intuitive way to weigh and assess the evidence relating to the core assumptions underpinning the planning and implementation of conservation projects, strategies, and actions. Our method directly tackles the question of how to bring together diverse evidence whilst assessing its relevance, reliability, and strength of support for a given assumption, which can be mapped, for example to a Theory of Change. We consider how simple principles and safeguards in applying this method could help to respectfully, and equitably, include more local forms of knowledge when assessing assumptions, such as by ensuring diverse groups of individuals contribute and assess evidence. The method can be flexibly applied within existing decision‐making tools, platforms, and frameworks whenever assumptions (i.e., claims and hypotheses) are made. This method could greatly facilitate and improve the weighing of diverse evidence to make decisions in a range of situations, from local projects to global policy platforms.

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“…Peatlands are waterlogged ecosystems that accumulate organic matter from partial plant decomposition (van Bellen & Larivière, 2020) and regulate water flow and quality (Shuttleworth et al, 2019). Wallowing by sambar deer has been identified as a threatening process for peatlands in south‐eastern Australia (Victoria's Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 ), and it has been suggested that culling would reduce these impacts (Parliament of Victoria, 2017; Rowland et al, 2023). Our management‐scale experiment used a BACI design to evaluate how ground‐based culling altered sambar deer impacts on peatlands.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Before‐After Control‐Impact experiment reveals that culling reduces the impacts of invasive deer on endangered peatlands

Comte,

Bengsen,

Thomas

et al. 2023

Journal of Applied Ecology

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Invasive deer have undesirable impacts on native ecosystems. Culling is commonly used to reduce those impacts, but is expensive and sometimes controversial. It is therefore important to robustly assess how culling reduces the impacts of invasive deer. We conducted a Before‐After Control‐Impact (BACI) experiment to determine how culling affects the impacts of invasive sambar deer Cervus unicolor in an endangered alpine peatland ecosystem in south‐eastern Australia. We established two blocks, each with four 4300‐ha experimental units, in which two units were randomly assigned to a treatment of deer culling and the other two were non‐treatment areas. Sambar deer relative abundance (faecal pellet count) and three impacts (ground degradation, pugging intensity and water turbidity) in three peatland features (peatlands, natural pools and sambar deer wallows) were surveyed before and after culling was implemented. We used four metrics to quantify the culling intensity in each treatment unit: treatment versus non‐treatment, number of deer culled on each unit, deer culled within a 500‐m buffer of impact monitoring sites and local probability of use by the cullers (1‐ha grid). The effects of culling on deer abundance and impacts were estimated using Bayesian generalised linear mixed models. Our analysis revealed that the effect of culling differed between the two experimental blocks. In one block, culling reduced deer abundance and three impacts. In the other block, culling did not reduce deer abundance but reduced three impacts and increased two impacts. The effects of culling were generally stronger when culling was estimated using finer‐scale (500‐m) than coarser‐scale (experimental unit) culling metrics. Synthesis and applications. Our study provides experimental evidence that culling invasive sambar deer reduces some of their undesirable impacts on endangered peatlands. That not all impacts were reduced by culling suggests that some effects of invasive species are slow to recover or require higher culling intensities to be reversed.

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How expert insight into alpine peatland conservation complements global scientific evidence

Abstract: Article impact statement: Experts' local experiences of management effectiveness, when collated and documented, align with and build on global scientific evidence.

Cited by 3 publications

References 41 publications

Setting research priorities for effective management of a threatened ecosystem: Australian alpine and subalpine peatland

Setting research priorities for effective management of a threatened ecosystem: Australian alpine and subalpine peatland

Assessing diverse evidence to improve conservation decision‐making

A Before‐After Control‐Impact experiment reveals that culling reduces the impacts of invasive deer on endangered peatlands

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