Refugia and connectivity sustain amphibian metapopulations afflicted by disease

Heard, Geoffrey W.; Thomas, Chris D.; Hodgson, Jenny A.; Scroggie, Michael P.; Ramsey, David S. L.; Clemann, Nick

doi:10.1111/ele.12463

Cited by 80 publications

(80 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…For example, some evidence suggests that the demographic benefit of connectivity outweighs the infectious risk of disease (McCallum & Dobson ; Heard et al . ), while other evidence points to beneficial fragmented populations experiencing refuge from disease (Becker & Zamudio ).…”

Section: Common Pitfalls In the Application Of Landscape Geneticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Navigating the pitfalls and promise of landscape genetics

et al. 2016

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The field of landscape genetics has been evolving rapidly since its emergence in the early 2000s. New applications, techniques and criticisms of techniques appear like clockwork with each new journal issue. The developments are an encouraging, and at times bewildering, sign of progress in an exciting new field of study. However, we suggest that the rapid expansion of landscape genetics has belied important flaws in the development of the field, and we add an air of caution to this breakneck pace of expansion. Specifically, landscape genetic studies often lose sight of the fundamental principles and complex consequences of gene flow, instead favouring simplistic interpretations and broad inferences not necessarily warranted by the data. Here, we describe common pitfalls that characterize such studies, and provide practical guidance to improve landscape genetic investigation, with careful consideration of inferential limits, scale, replication, and the ecological and evolutionary context of spatial genetic patterns. Ultimately, the utility of landscape genetics will depend on translating the relationship between gene flow and landscape features into an understanding of long‐term population outcomes. We hope the perspective presented here will steer landscape genetics down a more scientifically sound and productive path, garnering a field that is as informative in the future as it is popular now.

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Section: Common Pitfalls In the Application Of Landscape Geneticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Navigating the pitfalls and promise of landscape genetics

et al. 2016

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“…We updated the model by fitting it to a wider monitoring data set that covered 190 sites monitored over 11 seasons (2001/2002 to 2011/2012; n = 2011 surveys; Heard et al. ). This data set includes all the previous surveys.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cost‐effective conservation of an endangered frog under uncertainty

Rose

Heard

Chee

et al. 2015

Conservation Biology

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How should managers choose among conservation options when resources are scarce and there is uncertainty regarding the effectiveness of actions? Well-developed tools exist for prioritizing areas for one-time and binary actions (e.g., protect vs. not protect), but methods for prioritizing incremental or ongoing actions (such as habitat creation and maintenance) remain uncommon. We devised an approach that combines metapopulation viability and cost-effectiveness analyses to select among alternative conservation actions while accounting for uncertainty. In our study, cost-effectiveness is the ratio between the benefit of an action and its economic cost, where benefit is the change in metapopulation viability. We applied the approach to the case of the endangered growling grass frog (Litoria raniformis), which is threatened by urban development. We extended a Bayesian model to predict metapopulation viability under 9 urbanization and management scenarios and incorporated the full probability distribution of possible outcomes for each scenario into the cost-effectiveness analysis. This allowed us to discern between cost-effective alternatives that were robust to uncertainty and those with a relatively high risk of failure. We found a relatively high risk of extinction following urbanization if the only action was reservation of core habitat; habitat creation actions performed better than enhancement actions; and cost-effectiveness ranking changed depending on the consideration of uncertainty. Our results suggest that creation and maintenance of wetlands dedicated to L. raniformis is the only cost-effective action likely to result in a sufficiently low risk of extinction. To our knowledge we are the first study to use Bayesian metapopulation viability analysis to explicitly incorporate parametric and demographic uncertainty into a cost-effective evaluation of conservation actions. The approach offers guidance to decision makers aiming to achieve cost-effective conservation under uncertainty.

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“…The model was parameterized such that there is a very small chance vacant patches are colonized from outside sources. Further information on data collection, detectability estimates for L. raniformis and model fitting can be found in Heard et al (2015Heard et al ( , 2006 and Appendix S3, respectively. Surveys were conducted to maximize detection rates by carefully considering the timing (i.e., day vs. night) and duration of surveys (i.e., number of repeat visits to a site within a season; Heard et al 2006).…”

Section: Case Study 1: Growling Grass Frogmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimal timing of biodiversity offsetting for metapopulations

Southwell

Heard

McCarthy

2018

Ecological Applications

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Biodiversity offsetting schemes permit habitat destruction, provided that losses are compensated by gains elsewhere. While hundreds of offsetting schemes are used around the globe, the optimal timing of habitat creation in such projects is poorly understood. Here, we developed a spatially explicit metapopulation model for a single species subject to a habitat compensation scheme. Managers could compensate for destruction of a patch by creating a new patch either before, at the time of, or after patch loss. Delaying patch creation is intuitively detrimental to species persistence, but allowed managers to invest financial compensation, accrue interest, and create a larger patch at a later date. Using stochastic dynamic programming, we found the optimal timing of patch creation that maximizes the number of patches occupied at the end of a 50-yr habitat compensation scheme when a patch is destroyed after 10 yr. Two case studies were developed for Australian species subject to habitat loss but with very different traits: the endangered growling grass frog (Litoria raniformis) and the critically endangered Mount Lofty Ranges Southern Emu-wren (Spititurus malachurus intermedius). Our results show that adding a patch either before or well after habitat destruction can be optimal, depending on the occupancy state of the metapopulation, the interest rate, the area of the destroyed patch and metapopulation parameters of the focal species. Generally, it was better to delay patch creation when the interest rate was high, when the species had a relatively high colonization rate, when the patch nearest the new patch was occupied, and when the destroyed patch was small. Our framework can be applied to single-species metapopulations subject to habitat loss, and demonstrates that considering the timing of habitat compensation could improve the effectiveness of offsetting schemes.

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Refugia and connectivity sustain amphibian metapopulations afflicted by disease

Cited by 80 publications

References 48 publications

Navigating the pitfalls and promise of landscape genetics

Navigating the pitfalls and promise of landscape genetics

Cost‐effective conservation of an endangered frog under uncertainty

Optimal timing of biodiversity offsetting for metapopulations

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