Mammal seismic line use varies with restoration: Applying habitat restoration to species at risk conservation in a working landscape

Tattersall, Erin R.; Burgar, Joanna M.; Fisher, Jason T.; Burton, A. Cole

doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2019.108295

Cited by 44 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…CTs record animals remotely and noninvasively, thus avoiding limitations and potential biases common to more invasive or targeted survey methods that require capture or direct observation of study species [6]. Data from CT surveys can be used to estimate population density, occupancy and behaviour for a wide range of animals [7–11], and these estimates can be used to directly inform management practices [12,13]. CT surveys also capture images of incidental (non-target) species, giving the opportunity for a single survey to provide data on a broader wildlife community with minimal additional sampling costs [7,9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of scent lure on camera trap detections vary across mammalian predator and prey species

Holinda

Burgar

Burton

2020

Preprint

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AbstractCamera traps are a unique survey tool used to monitor a wide variety of mammal species. Camera trap (CT) data can be used to estimate animal distribution, density, and behaviour. Attractants, such as scent lures, are often used in an effort to increase CT detections; however, the degree which the effects of attractants vary across species is not well understood. We investigated the effects of scent lure on mammal detections by comparing detection rates between 404 lured and 440 unlured CT stations sampled in Alberta, Canada over 120 day survey periods between February and August in 2015 and 2016. We used zero-inflated negative binomial generalized linear mixed models to test the effect of lure on detection rates for a) all mammals, b) six functional groups (all predator species, all prey, large carnivores, small carnivores, small mammals, ungulates), and c) four varied species of management interest (fisher, Pekania pennanti; gray wolf, Canis lupus; moose, Alces alces; and Richardson’s ground squirrel; Urocitellus richardsonii). Mammals were detected at 800 of the 844 CTs, with nearly equal numbers of total detections at CTs with (7110) and without (7530) lure, and variable effects of lure on groups and individual species. Scent lure significantly increased detections of predators as a group, including large and small carnivore sub-groups and fisher specifically, but not of gray wolf. There was no effect of scent lure on detections of prey species, including the small mammal and ungulate sub-groups and moose and Richardson’s ground squirrel specifically. We recommend that researchers explicitly consider the variable effects of scent lure on CT detections across species when designing, interpreting, or comparing multi-species surveys. Additional research is needed to further quantify variation in species responses to scent lures and other attractants, and to elucidate the effect of attractants on community-level inferences from camera trap surveys.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of scent lure on camera trap detections vary across mammalian predator and prey species

Holinda

Burgar

Burton

2020

Preprint

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“…All source code and data for this BRAT analysis are openly available through GitHub (https://github.com/StewartResearch/ BRAT_CaribouCalculations.git). (Serrouya et al, 2020;Tatersall et al, 2020) over a period of 40 years or more; the total estimate of this treatment was therefore divided by 40 to obtain a yearly cost estimate. An effective threshold for these populations was considered to be 70%, as this reflects the Environment Canada's (2012) threshold tolerating 35% of a local population unit having disturbance.…”

Section: Data Availabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Cumulative Effects and Boreal Woodland Caribou: How Bow-Tie Risk Analysis Addresses a Critical Issue in Canada's Forested Landscapes

et al. 2020

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Boreal caribou (Woodland Caribou, boreal population; Rangifer tarandus caribou) is a prominent mammal at the heart of a decades-long conflict between a growing resource sector and the associated risks to biodiversity. We employed the ISO 31010 Bowtie Risk Assessment Tool (BRAT) to evaluate the cumulative effects of anthropogenic and natural factors that may affect risks to self-sustainability in boreal caribou herds of Northeastern British Columbia. We used the BRAT to produce a visual synthesis of the cumulative effects causing the growth rate of boreal caribou herds to persistently fall below a level corresponding to a 60% chance of self-sustainability (λ < 1.025). The BRAT diagram provided the basis for a quantitative Layers of Protection Analysis (LOPA) of risk probabilities for three caribou herds. We combined threat assessments from the Species at Risk Act recovery strategy (Environment Canada, 2012) with data from published landscape experiments (e.g., restoration of seismic traces, maternal penning, and wolf culls) to parameterize the LOPA in three study areas. We report the implications of a combination of mitigation options vs. current risk conditions, as well as the implications of uncertainty in threat prevention. Our analysis indicates that a combination of mitigation scenarios will best facilitate caribou herd recovery, that barriers preventing predation threats could also aid in recovery success, and that compensatory predation may account for a significant proportion of both adult and juvenile female mortality across different herds. We estimated the minimum annual cost for effective mitigation and recovery to be $CDN 224K within any of the study areas. Bow-tie diagrams are a flexible and quantifiable tool that can translate resource management solutions to the diverse audience involved in conservation decision-making: scientists, land managers, policy makers, and concerned stakeholders.

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“…Linear feature restoration aims to restore vegetation to its natural condition using treatments such as tree planting, soil mounding, and other silvicultural techniques. All other assumptions were the same as for LFD, with the exception that we assumed a 10-year period for vegetation regrowth to become effective at reducing wolf use and/or speed (Dickie et al, 2017;Tattersall et al, 2020; see Supplementary Material for details). This means that at year 15, conventional seismic lines are considered removed, as opposed to year 5 for LFD.…”

Section: Linear Feature Restoration (Lfr)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the case of woodland caribou, habitat management actions have mostly entailed the restoration (i.e., returning forest cover via silviculture) or deactivation (i.e., reducing predator use and/or speed via physical blocking) of linear features (Bentham and Coupal, 2015;Tattersall et al, 2020). Predator-prey management involves wolf and moose reductions (WR and MR, respectively), which have succeeded in stabilizing or even increasing some caribou populations (Hervieux et al, 2014;Serrouya et al, 2017bSerrouya et al, , 2019.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘WildLift’: An Open-Source Tool to Guide Decisions for Wildlife Conservation

et al. 2020

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A recurring challenge for resource managers and decision makers is quantifying the trade-offs associated with alternative recovery actions for threatened species. Structured decision-making approaches can help evaluate such complex problems by formalizing objectives and constraints into functions that quantify the benefits and costs associated with each action. Yet, many of the scientific tools necessary to implement structured decision making require extensive literature review and often involve complex algorithms that make them inaccessible to managers. To address these issues, we integrated available information and developed a decision-support tool that managers can readily use to compare costs and benefits associated with alternative recovery actions for threatened species. Our software can be used to quantitatively estimate and compare the costs and demographic benefits of recovery actions for an iconic threatened species, woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou). While we use caribou as a case study, our approach to developing this management tool is transferable to other threatened taxa. The tool consists of a generalized matrix population model that is parametrized based on information from the published literature or ongoing experiments. Users can input population parameters (e.g., population size and survival rates) or choose from pre-set caribou subpopulations to estimate changes to populations from implementing recovery actions. The tool estimates the trade-offs associated with seven alternative recovery actions: linear feature restoration (LFR), linear feature deactivation (LFD), maternal penning (MP), conservation breeding (CB), predator exclosure (PE), wolf reduction (WR), and moose reduction (MR). We demonstrate our software by comparing recovery actions for the East Side Athabasca River caribou subpopulation and discuss how this tool can be used under a structured decisionmaking framework. This case study suggests that our open-source tool can be useful to guide wildlife conservation decisions by explicitly estimating costs and benefits associated with recovery actions, which ultimately helps to bridge the gap between management and science via increased accessible application of current knowledge.

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Mammal seismic line use varies with restoration: Applying habitat restoration to species at risk conservation in a working landscape

Cited by 44 publications

References 42 publications

Effects of scent lure on camera trap detections vary across mammalian predator and prey species

Effects of scent lure on camera trap detections vary across mammalian predator and prey species

Cumulative Effects and Boreal Woodland Caribou: How Bow-Tie Risk Analysis Addresses a Critical Issue in Canada's Forested Landscapes

‘WildLift’: An Open-Source Tool to Guide Decisions for Wildlife Conservation

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