Norsk versjon av denne siden
Marco Dietmar Heurich
Professor
Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation Biology
- Email
-
marco.heurich@inn.no
- Phone number
-
+47 62 43 08 09
Faculty of Applied Ecology, Agricultural Sciences and Biotechnology
Department of Forestry and Wildlife Management
Campus Evenstad
Short description
Prof. Dr. Marco Heurich studied forestry in Weihenstephan, Germany and geoinformatics at the University of Salzburg, Austria. During his studies, he specialized in wildlife biology and forest ecology and spent a research semester at Isle Royale National Park in the United States. There and in northern Minnesota he worked with Rolf Peterson and David Mech on the trophical interactions of wolves, moose and forest ecosystems.
In his doctoral thesis he investigated the suitability of various remote sensing methods for recording forest structures as a basis for habitat models and in his habilitation he analysed the conservation ecology of Eurasian lynx and developed conservation strategies for this species in Central Europe.
He is the head of the department of visitor management and national park monitoring in the Bavarian Forest National Park, where he is responsible for the fields of wildlife and forest ecology and the human dimension of protected area management. At the same time he is a Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation Biology at the University of Freiburg and Professor at the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, where he teaches methods of wildlife research and management of protected areas.
His work focuses on the ecology of large mammals, their effects on the biological diversity of forest ecosystems, and the development of strategies for a successful coexistence between nature and humans. He has written and edited more than 277 peer-reviewed articles in international journals and six books. Prof. Heurich initiated several international research initiatives and is currently the scientific coordinator of Europe-wide lynx and wildcat research. He has visited a total of 120 national parks in 25 countries and thus is an expert in protected area management worldwide. He also conducts research in Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana where he conducts research on antelope species, black rhinos and elephants. He was awarded the Lennart Bernadotte Prize for Land Care for his excellent scientific work on the balance between technology, economy, and nature.
Heurich is regularly asked in the media as a contact person for wildlife and nature conservation topics.
Publications
-
-
-
-
-
-
Ferry, Nicolas; Dupont, Pierre; Bender, Andreas & Heurich, Marco Dietmar
(2024).
Introducing recurrent event analyses to assess species interactions based on camera-trap data: A comparison with time-to-first-event approaches.
Methods in Ecology and Evolution.
ISSN 2041-210X.
doi:
10.1111/2041-210X.14338.
-
Schindler, Frank; Steinhage, Volker; van Beeck Calkoen, Suzanne T.S & Heurich, Marco Dietmar
(2024).
Action Detection for Wildlife Monitoring with Camera Traps Based on Segmentation with Filtering of Tracklets (SWIFT) and Mask-Guided Action Recognition (MAROON).
Applied Sciences.
ISSN 2076-3417.
14(2).
doi:
10.3390/app14020514.
-
Moosavi, Sayed Jalal; Budde, Katharina Birgit; Heurich, Marco Dietmar; Mueller, Markus & Gailing, Oliver
(2024).
Genetic variation of English yew (Taxus baccata L.) in the Bavarian Forest National Park, Germany.
European Journal of Forest Research.
ISSN 1612-4669.
doi:
10.1007/s10342-024-01687-9.
-
-
Muther, Sandrina; Premier, Joe; Gahbauer, Martin; von Hoermann, Christian; Müller, Jörg & Heurich, Marco Dietmar
(2024).
Red fox cannibalism in a temperate forest ecosystem.
Basic and Applied Ecology.
ISSN 1439-1791.
77,
p. 8–15.
doi:
10.1016/j.baae.2024.03.002.
-
-
-
-
-
-
Dersch, S.; Schöttl, A.; Krzystek, P. & Heurich, Marco Dietmar
(2023).
Towards complete tree crown delineation by instance segmentation with Mask R–CNN and DETR using UAV-based multispectral imagery and lidar data.
ISPRS Open Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.
ISSN 2667-3932.
8.
doi:
10.1016/j.ophoto.2023.100037.
Full text in Research Archive
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Oeser, Julian; Heurich, Marco Dietmar; Kramer-Schadt, Stephanie A.; Mattisson, Jenny; Krofel, Miha & Krojerová-Prokešová, Jarmila
[Show all 40 contributors for this article]
(2023).
Integrating animal tracking datasets at a continental scale for mapping Eurasian lynx habitat.
Diversity and Distributions: A Journal of Conservation Biogeography.
ISSN 1366-9516.
29(12),
p. 1546–1560.
doi:
10.1111/ddi.13784.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Aim: The increasing availability of animal tracking datasets collected across many
sites provides new opportunities to move beyond local assessments to enable detailed and consistent habitat mapping at biogeographical scales. However, integrating
wildlife datasets across large areas and study sites is challenging, as species' varying
responses to different environmental contexts must be reconciled. Here, we compare
approaches for large-area habitat mapping and assess available habitat for a recolonizing large carnivore, the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx).
Location: Europe.
Methods: We use a continental-scale animal tracking database (450 individuals from
14 study sites) to systematically assess modelling approaches, comparing (1) global
strategies that pool all data for training versus building local, site-specific models and
combining them, (2) different approaches for incorporating regional variation in habitat selection and (3) different modelling algorithms, testing nonlinear mixed effects
models as well as machine-learning algorithms.
Results: Testing models on training sites and simulating model transfers, global and
local modelling strategies achieved overall similar predictive performance. Model
performance was the highest using flexible machine-learning algorithms and when
incorporating variation in habitat selection as a function of environmental variation.
Our best-performing model used a weighted combination of local, site-specific habitat models. Our habitat maps identified large areas of suitable, but currently unoccupied lynx habitat, with many of the most suitable unoccupied areas located in regions
that could foster connectivity between currently isolated populations.
Main Conclusions: We demonstrate that global and local modelling strategies can
achieve robust habitat models at the continental scale and that considering regional
variation in habitat selection improves broad-scale habitat mapping. More generally,
we highlight the promise of large wildlife tracking databases for large-area habitat
mapping. Our maps provide the first high-resolution, yet continental assessment of
lynx habitat across Europe, providing a consistent basis for conservation planning for
restoring the species within its former range.
animal tracking, Eurasian lynx, habitat suitability, large carnivore, large-area mapping, Lynx lynx
-
Döringer, Stefanie; Porst, Florian; Stumpf, Lena & Heurich, Marco Dietmar
(2023).
The Relationship between Measured Visitor Density and Perceived Crowding Revisited: Predicting Perceived Crowding in Outdoor Recreation.
Leisure Sciences.
ISSN 0149-0400.
doi:
10.1080/01490400.2023.2265366.
-
-
-
-
-
König, Simon; Thonfeld, Frank; Förster, Michael; Dubovyk, Olena & Heurich, Marco Dietmar
(2023).
Assessing Combinations of Landsat, Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-1 Time series for Detecting Bark Beetle Infestations.
GIScience & Remote Sensing.
ISSN 1548-1603.
60(1).
doi:
10.1080/15481603.2023.2226515.
-
-
Palmero, Stefano; Premier, Joe; Kramer-Schadt, Stephanie; Monterroso, Pedro & Heurich, Marco Dietmar
(2023).
Sampling variables and their thresholds for the precise estimation of wild felid population density with camera traps and spatial capture–recapture methods.
Mammal Review.
ISSN 0305-1838.
53(4),
p. 223–237.
doi:
10.1111/mam.12320.
Full text in Research Archive
-
-
-
Khorozyan, Igor & Heurich, Marco Dietmar
(2023).
Patterns of predation by the Eurasian lynx Lynx lynx throughout its range: ecological and conservation implications.
Mammal Review.
ISSN 0305-1838.
53(3),
p. 177–188.
doi:
10.1111/mam.12317.
-
Oeser, Julian; Heurich, Marco Dietmar; Kramer‑Schadt, Stephanie; Andrén, Henrik; Bagrade, Guna & Belotti, Elisa
[Show all 37 contributors for this article]
(2023).
Prerequisites for coexistence: human pressure and refuge
habitat availability shape continental‑scale habitat use
patterns of a large carnivore.
Landscape Ecology.
ISSN 0921-2973.
38,
p. 1713–1728.
doi:
10.1007/s10980-023-01645-7.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Context
Adjustments in habitat use by large carnivores can be a key factor facilitating their coexistence with people in shared landscapes. Landscape composition might be a key factor determining how large carnivores can adapt to occurring alongside humans, yet broad-scale analyses investigating adjustments of habitat use across large gradients of human pressure and landscape composition are lacking.
Objectives
Here, we investigate adjustments in habitat use by Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) in response to varying availability of refuge habitats (i.e., forests and rugged terrain) and human landscape modification.Methods
Using a large tracking dataset including 434 individuals from seven populations, we assess functional responses in lynx habitat use across two spatial scales, testing for variation by sex, daytime, and season.
Results
We found that lynx use refuge habitats more intensively with increasing landscape modification across spatial scales, selecting forests most strongly in otherwise open landscapes and rugged terrain in mountainous regions. Moreover, higher forest availability enabled lynx to place their home ranges in more human-modified landscapes. Human pressure and refuge habitat availability also shaped temporal patterns of lynx habitat use, with lynx increasing refuge habitat use and reducing their use of human-modified areas during periods of high exposure (daytime) or high vulnerability (postnatal period) to human pressure.
Conclusions
Our findings suggest a remarkable adaptive capacity of lynx towards human pressure and underline the importance of refuge habitats across scales for enabling coexistence between large carnivores and people. More broadly, we highlight that the composition of landscapes determines how large carnivores can adapt to human pressure and thus play an important role shaping large carnivore habitat use and distributions.
Animal tracking · Adjustment · Eurasian
lynx · Functional response · Habitat availability ·
Lynx lynx
-
-
-
Peters, Anne; Ruess, Ramona & Heurich, Marco Dietmar
(2023).
The effects of outdoor recreation on wildlife – Results of a comparative literature review.
Naturschutz und Landschaftsplanung.
ISSN 0940-6808.
55(1).
doi:
10.1399/NuL.2023.01.02.
Show summary
Outdoor activities such as hiking and cycling are growing in popularity, which is also reflected by increasing visitor numbers in protected areas. However, this literature review documents adverse effects of recreational use on wildlife behaviour, physiology, and demography. Large carnivores, mesopredators, and ungulates react, for instance, with increased vigilance and flight behaviour to recreational activities. Outdoor recreation can also have negative effects on resting times, foraging behaviour, stress levels, reproductive success, and can lead to an alteration of wildlife’s spatio-temporal behaviour and activity. Due to interactions of different environmental variables and individual factors, the different behavioural reactions can be displayed to varying degrees. In order to mitigate the effects of recreational activities on wildlife, management plans should promote the spatial and temporal separation of recreationists and wildlife through regulations, e.g. restricting recreational use to trails and restricting access to certain areas spatially and/or temporally, and through the management of visitor movements or even the reduction of already existing infrastructure. Raising visitor awareness regarding the effects of their activities could also help to promote compliance and thereby reduce the adverse impacts of recreational use on wildlife.
-
-
-
De Groeve, Johannes; Van de Weghe, Nico; Ranc, Nathan; Morellet, Nicolas; Bonnot, Nadège C. & Gehr, Benedikt
[Show all 13 contributors for this article]
(2023).
Back and forth: day–night alternation between cover types
reveals complementary use of habitats in a large herbivore.
Landscape Ecology.
ISSN 0921-2973.
38,
p. 1033–1049.
doi:
10.1007/s10980-023-01594-1.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Context The Complementary Habitat Hypothesis
posits that animals access resources for diferent
needs by moving between complementary habitats
that can be seen as ‘resource composites’. These
movements can occur over a range of temporal scales,
from diurnal to seasonal, in response to multiple
drivers such as access to food, weather constraints,
risk avoidance and human disturbance. Within this
framework, we hypothesised that large herbivores
cope with human-altered landscapes through the
alternate use of complementary habitats at both daily
and seasonal scales.
Objectives We tested the Complementary Habitat
Hypothesis in European roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) by classifying 3900 habitat-annotated movement
trajectories of 154 GPS-monitored individuals across
contrasting landscapes.
Methods We considered day-night alternation
between open food-rich and closed refuge habitats
as a measure of complementary habitat use. We frst
identifed day–night alternation using the Individual
Movement - Sequence Analysis Method, then we
modelled the proportion of day–night alternation
over the year in relation to population and individual
characteristics.
Results We found that day-night alternation is a
widespread behaviour in roe deer, even across markedly diferent landscapes. Day–night alternation followed seasonal trends in all populations, partly linked
to vegetation phenology. Within populations, seasonal
patterns of open/closed habitat alternation difered
between male and female adults, but not in juveniles.
Conclusion Our results support the Complementary Habitat Hypothesis by showing that roe deer
adjust their access to the varied resources available
in complex landscapes by including diferent habitats
within their home range, and sequentially alternating
between them in response to seasonal changes and
individual life history.
Animal trajectories · Habitat use ·
IM-SAM · Resource composites · Roe deer ·
Sequential analysis methods · Spatio-temporal
patterns · Vegetation green up
-
-
-
Sani-Mohammed, Abubakar; Yao, Wei & Heurich, Marco Dietmar
(2022).
Instance segmentation of standing dead trees in dense forest from aerial imagery using deep learning.
ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (P&RS).
ISSN 0924-2716.
6.
doi:
10.1016/j.ophoto.2022.100024.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Mapping standing dead trees, especially, in natural forests is very important for evaluation of the forest's health status, and its capability for storing Carbon, and the conservation of biodiversity. Apparently, natural forests have larger areas which renders the classical field surveying method very challenging, time-consuming, labor-intensive, and unsustainable. Thus, for effective forest management, there is the need for an automated approach that would be cost-effective. With the advent of Machine Learning, Deep Learning has proven to successfully achieve excellent results. This study presents an adjusted Mask R-CNN Deep Learning approach for detecting and segmenting standing dead trees in a mixed dense forest from CIR aerial imagery using a limited (195 images) training dataset. First, transfer learning is considered coupled with the image augmentation technique to leverage the limitation of training datasets. Then, we strategically selected hyperparameters to suit appropriately our model's architecture that fits well with our type of data (dead trees in images). Finally, to assess the generalization capability of our model's performance, a test dataset that was not confronted to the deep neural network was used for comprehensive evaluation. Our model recorded promising results reaching a mean average precision, average recall, and average F1-Score of 0.85, 0.88, and 0.87 respectively, despite our relatively low resolution (20 cm) dataset. Consequently, our model could be used for automation in standing dead tree detection and segmentation for enhanced forest management. This is equally significant for biodiversity conservation, and forest Carbon storage estimation.
-
Zong, Xin; Wang, Tiejun; Skidmore, Andrew K. & Heurich, Marco Dietmar
(2022).
LiDAR reveals a preference for intermediate visibility by a forest-dwelling ungulate species.
Journal of Animal Ecology.
ISSN 0021-8790.
doi:
10.1111/1365-2656.13847.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Abstract
1. Visibility (viewshed) plays a significant and diverse role in animals' behaviour and fitness. Understanding how visibility influences animal behaviour requires the measurement of habitat visibility at spatial scales commensurate to individual animal choices. However, measuring habitat visibility at a fine spatial scale over a landscape is a challenge, particularly in highly heterogeneous landscapes (e.g. forests). As a result, our ability to model the influence of fine-scale visibility on animal behaviour has been impeded or limited.
2. In this study, we demonstrate the application of the concept of three-dimensional (3D) cumulative viewshed in the study of animal spatial behaviour at a landscape level. Specifically, we employed a newly described approach that combines ter-restrial and airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) to measure fine-scale habitat visibility (3D cumulative viewshed) on a continuous scale in forested landscapes. We applied the LiDAR-derived visibility to investigate how visibility in forests affects the summer habitat selection and the movement of 20 GPS- collared female red deer Cervus elaphus in a temperate forest in Germany. We used integrated step selection analysis to determine whether red deer show any preference for fine-scale habitat visibility and whether visibility is related to the rate of movement of red deer.
3. We found that red deer selected intermediate habitat visibility. Their preferred level of visibility during the day was substantially lower than that of night and twilight, whereas the preference was not significantly different between night and twilight. In addition, red deer moved faster in high-visibility areas, possibly mainly to avoid predation and anthropogenic risk. Furthermore, red deer moved most rapidly between locations in the twilight.
4. For the first time, the preference for intermediate habitat visibility and the adap-tion of movement rate to fine-scale visibility by a forest-dwelling ungulate spe-cies at a landscape scale was revealed. The LiDAR technique used in this study offers fine-scale habitat visibility at the landscape level in forest ecosystems, which would be of broader interest in the fields of animal ecology and behaviour.
-
Oliveira, Teresa; Sanchez, David Carricondo; Mattisson, Jenny; Vogt, Kristina; Corradini, Andrea & Linnell, John Durrus
[Show all 10 contributors for this article]
(2022).
Predicting kill sites of an apex predator from GPS data in different multi-prey systems.
Ecological Applications.
ISSN 1051-0761.
doi:
10.1002/eap.2778.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Kill rates are a central parameter to assess the impact of predation on preyspecies. An accurate estimation of kill rates requires a correct identificationof kill sites, often achieved by field-checking GPS location clusters (GLCs).However, there are potential sources of error included in kill-site identifica-tion, such as failing to detect GLCs that are kill sites, and misclassifying thegenerated GLCs (e.g., kill for nonkill) that were not field checked. Here, weaddress these two sources of error using a large GPS dataset of collared Eur-asian lynx (Lynx lynx), an apex predator of conservation concern in Europe, inthree multiprey systems, with different combinations of wild, semidomestic,and domestic prey. We first used a subsampling approach to investigate howdifferent GPS-fix schedules affected the detection of GLC-indicated kill sites.Then, we evaluated the potential of the random forest algorithm to classifyGLCs as nonkills, small prey kills, and ungulate kills. We show that thenumber of fixes can be reduced from seven to three fixes per night withoutmissing more than 5% of the ungulate kills, in a system composed of wild prey.Reducing the number of fixes per 24 h decreased the probability of detectingGLCs connected with kill sites, particularly those of semidomestic or domesticprey, and small prey. Random forest successfully predicted between 73%–90%of ungulate kills, but failed to classify most small prey in all systems, withsensitivity (true positive rate) lower than 65%. Additionally, removingdomestic prey improved the algorithm’s overall accuracy. We provide a setof recommendations for studies focusing on kill-site detection that can beconsidered for other large carnivore species in addition to the Eurasian lynx.We recommend caution when working in systems including domestic prey,as the odds of underestimating kill rates are higher.domestic prey, Eurasian lynx, GPS location clusters (GLCs), GPS-fix schedule, kill sites,multiprey system, random forest
-
-
Barta, Karola Anna; Hais, Martin & Heurich, Marco Dietmar
(2022).
Characterizing forest disturbance and recovery with thermal trajectories derived from Landsat time series data.
Remote Sensing of Environment.
ISSN 0034-4257.
282.
doi:
10.1016/j.rse.2022.113274.
Show summary
The increasing frequency of forest disturbances caused by climate change has highlighted the importance of understanding the entire process of disturbance, from its onset to forest recovery. Many previous studies have used multispectral Landsat time-series data describing forest dynamics. However, there is a lack of studies using thermal imagery, which may provide information about bio-climatic changes and energy balance during the forest disturbance and recovery. Our objective in this research was to detect the main features of insect forest disturbance and subsequent forest recovery (disturbance duration, disturbance severity, recovery duration) using thermal Landsat imagery. We also aimed to determine the relationship between the identified thermal features and topography. The study area was a Norway spruce (Picea abies [L.] Karst.) dominated forest located in a Central European border region between the Czech Republic (Šumava Mountains) and Germany (Bavarian Forest). For more than three decades, forests in this area have experienced widespread defoliation due to the spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus L.). We determined the forest's surface temperature (ST) between 1985 and 2015 from thermal Landsat time-series data and then normalized it (STn) to be comparable across the years in question. We plotted thermal trajectories for this period and then clustered them based on their variances. The resulting thermal trajectories well described both disturbance and recovery, showing a rise in the STn during the onset of the disturbance, the severity, and a decrease during recovery. The mean disturbance duration was 8.44 years (SD = ±3.775), with a maximum severity as indicated by the STn of 4.92 (SD = ±1.5) and a duration of 12.84 years (SD = ±3.38) until 50% recovery and 17.85 years (SD = ±1.74) until 80% recovery. Clustering of the thermal trajectories revealed clusters with similar year-groups of bark beetle attack and a spatially aggregated pattern closely related to topography. Severity showed a positive correlation with altitude, whereas the spatially aggregated patterns of disturbance and recovery duration can be attributed to more complex topographical characteristics. Our study demonstrates the ability of thermal infrared imagery to provide highly relevant data for assessing not only the main features of forest disturbance and recovery, but also bio-climatic canopy functions in terms of topography and other environmental variables.
-
Yu, Haili; Wang, Tiejun; Skidmore, Andrew; Heurich, Marco Dietmar & Bässler, Claus
(2022).
50 Years of Cumulative Open-Source Data Confirm Stable and Robust Biodiversity Distribution Patterns for Macrofungi.
Journal of fungi (JoF).
ISSN 2309-608X.
8(9).
doi:
10.3390/jof8090981.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Fungi are a hyper-diverse kingdom that contributes significantly to the regulation of the global carbon and nutrient cycle. However, our understanding of the distribution of fungal diversity is often hindered by a lack of data, especially on a large spatial scale. Open biodiversity data may provide a solution, but concerns about the potential spatial and temporal bias in species occurrence data arising from different observers and sampling protocols challenge their utility. The theory of species accumulation curves predicts that the cumulative number of species reaches an asymptote when the sampling effort is sufficiently large. Thus, we hypothesize that open biodiversity data could be used to reveal large-scale macrofungal diversity patterns if these datasets are accumulated long enough. Here, we tested our hypothesis with 50 years of macrofungal occurrence records in Norway and Sweden that were downloaded from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). We first grouped the data into five temporal subsamples with different cumulative sampling efforts (i.e., accumulation of data for 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 years). We then predicted the macrofungal diversity and distribution at each subsample using the maximum entropy (MaxEnt) species distribution model. The results revealed that the cumulative number of macrofungal species stabilized into distinct distribution patterns with localized hotspots of predicted macrofungal diversity with sampling efforts greater than approximately 30 years. Our research demonstrates the utility and importance of the long-term accumulated open biodiversity data in studying macrofungal diversity and distribution at the national level.
-
Alagialoglou, Leonidas; Manakos, Ioannis; Heurich, Marco Dietmar; Cervenka, Jaroslav & Delopoulos, Anastasios
(2022).
A Learnable Model with Calibrated Uncertainty Quantification for Estimating Canopy Height from Spaceborne Sequential Imagery.
IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.
ISSN 0196-2892.
60.
doi:
10.1109/TGRS.2022.3171407.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Global-scale canopy height mapping is an important tool for ecosystem monitoring and sustainable forest management. Various studies have demonstrated the ability to estimate canopy height from a single spaceborne multispectral image using end-to-end learning techniques. In addition to texture information of a single-shot image, our study exploits multitemporal information of image sequences to improve estimation accuracy. We adopt a convolutional variant of a long short-term memory (LSTM) model for canopy height estimation from multitemporal instances of Sentinel-2 products. Furthermore, we utilize the deep ensembles technique for meaningful uncertainty estimation on the predictions and postprocessing isotonic regression model for calibrating them. Our lightweight model ( ∼320k trainable parameters) achieves the mean absolute error (MAE) of 1.29 m in a European test area of 79 km2 . It outperforms the state-of-the-art methods based on single-shot spaceborne images as well as costly airborne images while providing additional confidence maps that are shown to be well calibrated. Moreover, the trained model is shown to be transferable in a different country of Europe using a fine-tuning area of as low as ∼2 km2 with MAE=1.94m.
-
Gatiso, Tsegaye T.; Kulik, Lars; Bachmann, Mona; Bonn, Aletta; Bösch, Lukas & Eirdosh, Dustin
[Show all 13 contributors for this article]
(2022).
Effectiveness of protected areas influenced by socio-economic context.
Nature Sustainability.
ISSN 2398-9629.
5,
p. 861–868.
doi:
10.1038/s41893-022-00932-6.
Show summary
Protected area (PA) performance is thought to depend on effective conservation management and favourable socio-economic context. However, increasing evidence of continued biodiversity decline within PAs raises the question of whether fundamental ecological and socio-economic constraints might actually affect PA effectiveness. Here we quantify how threats to biodiversity, socio-economic context and conservation efforts play out across 114 PAs in 25 European and African countries. We found that even in the presence of highly favourable socio-economic context and conservation efforts, it is not possible to completely offset the intensity of threats and prevent biodiversity decline. Projections show that halting biodiversity decline across the studied PA network may require at least a 35% increase in conservation efforts over a decade. However, as PAs approach zero biodiversity loss, even greater efforts and resources would be needed because of the principle of diminishing marginal returns. Our findings point to limited effectiveness of PAs and their management that might not be possible to address by simply increasing resources. Additionally, the adoption of core design principles of sustainable systems that take into account the social–ecological contexts of PAs could help overcome the observed hurdles of limited effectiveness and thus better integrate PAs into sustainable development efforts.
-
Busse, Annika; Cizek, Lukas; Čížkova, Pavla; Drag, Lukas; Dvorak, Vladimir & Foit, Jiří
[Show all 18 contributors for this article]
(2022).
Forest dieback in a protected area triggers the return of the primeval forest specialist Peltis grossa (Coleoptera, Trogossitidae).
Conservation Science and Practice (CSP).
ISSN 2578-4854.
4(2).
doi:
10.1111/csp2.612.
Show summary
Forest set-aside is a commonly employed conservation strategy, but large-scale disturbances regularly evoke discussions on its utility for biodiversity conservation in former production forests. In this study, we reconstructed the return of a primeval forest specialist, the beetle Peltis grossa (Linnaeus, 1758) of the family Trogossitidae, to two national parks after more than a century of absence. To illuminate historical processes and the role of potential refuges and species' size, we compared the beetle's current distribution collected in a large-scale citizen science approach, with historical data and the current distribution of two closely related, smaller species. We quantified deadwood preferences and investigated the effect of benign neglect versus salvage-logging management practices on P. grossa abundances. Our findings support the view that P. grossa survived in the southern Bohemian Forest, which enabled its recolonization of the landscapes. However, a build-up of the population was dependent upon a massive supply of deadwood by bark beetles within the refuge area. In a large area in the north of the study region that >20 years ago contained ample amounts of deadwood, forest succession outpaced colonization by P. grossa. The current probability of the species' presence decreased with distance to the presumed refuge area from 70% to 5% at 40 km. In the present core distribution area of P. grossa, salvage logging reduced its abundance by the factor 20. These results provide three important lessons on the potential of natural disturbances as a biodiversity restoration tool in forest set-asides: First, large supply of deadwood by disturbance can trigger the return of locally extinct primeval forest specialists. Second, the species must survive within a critical distance (for P. grossa < 10–40 km). Third, salvage logging significantly reduces the population densities of forest specialists by reducing habitat amount.
-
Gatiso, Tsegaye T.; Kulik, Lars; Bachmann, Mona; Bonn, Aletta; Bösch, Lukas & Freytag, Andreas
[Show all 12 contributors for this article]
(2022).
Sustainable protected areas: Synergies between biodiversity conservation and socioeconomic development.
People and Nature.
ISSN 2575-8314.
4(4),
p. 893–903.
doi:
10.1002/pan3.10326.
Show summary
1. Reconciling conservation and socioeconomic development goals is key to sustainability but remains a source of fierce debate. Protected areas (PAs) are believed to play an essential role in achieving these seemingly conflicting goals. Yet, there is limited evidence as to whether PAs are actually achieving the two goals simultaneously.
2. Here, we investigate when and to what extent synergies or trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and local socioeconomic development occur. To explore these relationships, we collected data across a wide range of socioeconomic settings through face-to- face survey with PA managers from 114 African and European PAs using structured questionnaire.
3. We found synergies between biodiversity conservation and socioeconomic development for 62% of the PAs, albeit with significant differences between African (55%) and European PAs (75%). Moreover, the sustainability of PAs in conserving biodiversity was strongly correlated with the empowerment of the PA management and the involvement of local communities in PA planning and decision-making processes.
4. Our results demonstrate that for PAs to promote synergies between biodiversity conservation and local socioeconomic development, and to enhance their longterm sustainability, they should invest in the empowerment of their respective management and involvement of local communities in their planning and management activities.
-
Hummel, Herman; Kalle, Valerie; Bienfait, Louise; Boyer, Yolande; Heurich, Marco Dietmar & Svajda, Juraj
[Show all 25 contributors for this article]
(2022).
A bottom-up practitioner-derived set of Essential Variables for Protected Area management.
Environmental and Sustainability Indicators.
ISSN 2665-9727.
14.
doi:
10.1016/j.indic.2022.100179.
Show summary
Assessing the environmental status of Protected Areas (PAs) is a challenging issue. To indicate that status, the identification of a common set of variables that are scientifically sound, and easy to assess and monitor by the PA practitioners, is particularly important. In this study, a set of 27 Essential Variables (EVs) for PA management was selected in a bottom-up process from 67 harmonised variables that describe the status of Ecosystem Functions and Structures, Ecosystem Services, and Threats in PAs. This bottom-up process involved 27 internationally recognised PAs, mostly European, with different level of protection, different extent, and a wide range of human-nature interactions. The EVs were selected by more than 120 practitioners, i.e. PA managers and rangers, as well as scientists, working in terrestrial and aquatic PAs. Across both terrestrial and aquatic PAs, scientists and practitioners largely identified the same variables as important. Data availability for these 27 EVs varied between PAs and averaged 67% across all studied PAs. As this set of EVs for PAs is defined through a bottom-up approach considering variables already in use both in management and research, it is more than for previous EVs likely to be adopted, applied and developed to record the status and changes in the ecological and socio-economic conditions of PAs and to forecast future changes. Thereby, the EVs for PAs present a common vocabulary and tool to enhance in a uniform way the (inter)national communication, exchange and comparison of information on the status of PAs between policy makers, scientists and PA managers. The perceived status of the EVs, on an average 3.6 on a scale to a maximum of 5, indicates the surveyed PAs are in a moderate to good environmental condition. Moreover, the EVs for PAs form a cost- and time-efficient tool for PA managers to monitor developments in essential elements of their PAs, including the potential for Societal Goods and Benefits (SG&B), and to (pro-)actively tackle the potential threats that may arise in their area. Likewise, for policy makers EVs for PAs may support decision making on ecosystem management, spatial planning, and predictive modelling on the future status and requirements of PAs in their country or region.
-
-
-
Henrich, Maik; Hartig, Florian; Dormann, Carsten F.; Kühl, Hjalmar S.; Peters, Wibke & Franke, Frederik
[Show all 9 contributors for this article]
(2022).
Deer Behavior Affects Density Estimates With Camera Traps, but Is Outwighted by Spatial Variability.
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.
ISSN 2296-701X.
10.
doi:
10.3389/fevo.2022.881502.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Density is a key trait of populations and an essential parameter in ecological research, wildlife conservation and management. Several models have been developed to estimate population density based on camera trapping data, including the random encounter model (REM) and camera trap distance sampling (CTDS). Both models need to account for variation in animal behavior that depends, for example, on the species and sex of the animals along with temporally varying environmental factors. We examined
whether the density estimates of REM and CTDS can be improved for Europe’s most numerous deer species, by adjusting the behavior-related model parameters per species and accounting for differences in movement speeds between sexes, seasons, and years. Our results showed that bias through inadequate consideration of animal behavior was exceeded by the uncertainty of the density estimates, which was mainly influenced by variation in the number of independent observations between camera trap locations. The neglection of seasonal and annual differences in movement speed estimates for REM overestimated densities of red deer in autumn and spring by ca. 14%. This GPS telemetry-derived parameter was found to be most problematic for roe deer females in summer and spring when movement behavior was characterized by small-scale displacements relative to the intervals of the GPS fixes. In CTDS, density estimates of red deer improved foremost through the consideration of behavioral reactions to the camera traps (avoiding bias of max. 19%), while species-specific delays between photos had a larger effect for roe deer. In general, the applicability of both REM and CTDS would profit profoundly from improvements in their precision along with the reduction in bias achieved by exploiting the available information on animal behavior in the camera
trap data.
-
Sunde, Peter; Böcker, Felix; Rauset, Geir Rune; Kjellander, Petter; Chrenkova, Monika & Skovdal, Trine Munck
[Show all 9 contributors for this article]
(2022).
Mammal responses to predator scents across multiple study areas.
Ecosphere.
ISSN 2150-8925.
13(8).
doi:
10.1002/ecs2.4215.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Antipredator behaviors allow prey to mitigate the impacts of their predators. We investigated antipredator responses of two herbivore species, roe deer and European hare, and one mesopredator, red fox, toward predation risk imposed by lynx and wolf. We collected data (using camera traps) on visitation fre quency and vigilance behavior to olfactory predator stimuli during 158 stan dardized scent trials in five areas across Europe, where lynx and wolves either occurred or had been absent for centuries. After a period without scent, trial sites were either marked with lynx or wolf urine, or butyric acid (unspecific scent used to contrast species-specific scent responses). We expected the two herbivores to respond aversively (reduced visitation frequency, and increased vigilance) to predator urine, while red foxes (scavengers) might adopt a risk-sensitive exploration strategy by increasing vigilance near predator urine without reducing visitation frequency. For all species, we expected stronger responses toward the ambush predator lynx than to the pursue predator wolf (cryptic predator hypothesis). If prey responds more strongly to predator stim uli when coexisting with the predator, we expected stronger reactions to preda tor urine in areas where predators occurred (naïve prey hypothesis). Roe deer significantly avoided lynx urine and butyric acid, but not wolf urine. However, roe deer visitation frequency did not differ between scent treatment with largecarnivore urine and butyric acid (suggesting that roe deer generally avoid areas with unfamiliar scent), or between areas where large carnivores were present and absent. Hares did not significantly avoid predator urine. Red foxes were attracted to lynx urine in sympatry, but not in allopatry with large carnivores. They increased vigilance rates in the presence of lynx urine independent of sympatry/ allopatry with large carnivores. These findings generally confirm our expectations of predator avoidance by herbivores, and attraction combined with increased vigi lance of mesopredators. In all species, lynx urine elicited stronger responses than wolf urine (although not significantly different), which to some extent conforms to the cryptic predator hypothesis. We found no support for the naïve prey hypothesis. However, higher attraction of red foxes to lynx urine in sympatric situ ations might indicate that positive responses by scavengers are learning based. antipredator behavior, avoidance, Canis lupus, Capreolus capreolus, intra-guild predation, landscapes of fear, Lepus europaeus, Lynx lynx, odor, risk-sensitive foraging, vigilance, Vulpes vulpes
-
-
-
Filla, Marc; Lama, Rinzin Phunjok; Filla, Tim; Heurich, Marco Dietmar; Balkenhol, Niko & Waltert, Matthias
[Show all 7 contributors for this article]
(2022).
Patterns of livestock depredation by snow leopards and effects of intervention strategies: Lessons from the Nepalese Himalaya.
Wildlife research (East Melbourne).
ISSN 1035-3712.
doi:
10.1071/WR21169.
Show summary
Context:
Large carnivores are increasingly threatened by anthropogenic activities, and their protection is among the main goals of biodiversity conservation. The snow leopard (Panthera uncia) inhabits high-mountain landscapes where livestock depredation drives it into conflicts with local people and poses an obstacle for its conservation.
Aims:
The aim of this study was to identify the livestock groups most vulnerable to depredation, target them in implementation of practical interventions, and assess the effectiveness of intervention strategies for conflict mitigation. We present a novel attempt to evaluate intervention strategies for particularly vulnerable species, age groups, time, and seasons.
Methods:
In 2020, we conducted questionnaire surveys in two regions of the Annapurna Conservation Area, Nepal (Manang, n = 146 respondents and Upper Mustang, n = 183). We applied sample comparison testing, Jacobs’ selectivity index, and generalised linear models (GLMs) to assess rates and spatio-temporal heterogeneity of depredation, reveal vulnerable livestock groups, analyse potential effects of applied intervention strategies, and identify husbandry factors relevant to depredation.
Key results:
Snow leopard predation was a major cause of livestock mortality in both regions (25.4–39.8%), resulting in an estimated annual loss of 3.2–3.6% of all livestock. The main intervention strategies (e.g. corrals during night-time and herding during daytime) were applied inconsistently and not associated with decreases in reported livestock losses. In contrast, we found some evidence that dogs, deterrents (light, music playing, flapping tape, and dung burning), and the use of multiple interventions were associated with a reduction in reported night-time depredation of yaks.
Conclusions and implications:
We suggest conducting controlled randomised experiments for quantitative assessment of the effectiveness of dogs, deterrents, and the use of multiple interventions, and widely applying the most effective ones in local communities. This would benefit the long-term co-existence of snow leopards and humans in the Annapurna region and beyond.
-
-
Salvatori, M.; De Groeve, Groeve; van Loon, Loon; De Baets, Baets; Morellet, N. & Focardi, S.
[Show all 17 contributors for this article]
(2022).
Day versus night use of forest by red and roe deer as determined by Corine Land Cover and Copernicus Tree Cover Density: assessing use of geographic layers in movement ecology.
Landscape Ecology.
ISSN 0921-2973.
37,
p. 1453–1468.
doi:
10.1007/s10980-022-01416-w.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Context
Diel use of forest and open habitats by large herbivores is linked to species-specifc needs of multiple and heterogeneous resources. However, forest cover layers might deviate considerably for a given landscape, potentially afecting evaluations of animals’ habitat use.
Objectives We assessed inconsistency in the estimates of diel forest use by red and roe deer at GPS location and home range (HR) levels, using two geographic layers: Tree Cover Density (TCD) and Corine Land Cover (CLC).
Methods We frst measured the classifcation mismatch of red and roe deer GPS locations between TCD and CLC, also with respect to habitat units’ size. Then, we used Generalised Least Squares models to assess the proportional use of forest at day and night at the GPS location and HR levels, both with TCD and CLC.
Results About 20% of the GPS locations were inconsistently classifed as forest or open habitat by the two layers, particularly within smaller habitat units. Overall proportion of forest and open habitat, though, was very similar for both layers. In all populations, both deer species used forest more at day than at night and this pattern was more evident with TCD than with CLC. However, at the HR level, forest use estimates were only marginally diferent between the
two layers.
Conclusions When estimating animal habitat use, geographic layer choice requires careful evaluation with respect to ecological questions and target species. Habitat use analyses based on GPS locations are more sensitive to layer choice than those based on home ranges.
-
van Beeck Calkoen, Suzanne T. S.; Deis, Michele H.; Oeser, Julian; Kuijper, Dries P. J. & Heurich, Marco Dietmar
(2022).
Humans rather than Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) shape ungulate browsing patterns in a temperate forest.
Ecosphere.
ISSN 2150-8925.
13(2).
doi:
10.1002/ecs2.3931.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
The recolonization of human-dominated landscapes by large carnivores has
been followed with considerable scientific interest; however, little is known
about their interactive effect on ungulate foraging behavior. This study compared the risks imposed by humans and lynx on ungulate foraging behavior by
examining the effects of browsing intensity (at two spatial scales), diet quality,
and tree species selection. We hypothesized that: (1) in areas with high risk
imposed by humans and lynx browsing intensity would be reduced; (2) risk
effects would interact with habitat visibility at a fine scale, resulting in contrasting browsing patterns in response to humans versus lynx risk; (3) ungulates compensate for the higher costs incurred in high-risk areas by switching to a higher diet quality, and (4) browse a higher proportion of more-preferred tree species. These hypotheses were tested by measuring browsing intensity along 48 transects located at different distances from human settlements within the hunted and nonhunted areas of the Bavarian Forest. Dung samples were collected and analyzed as a proxy of diet quality (C:N ratio, fiber). The spatial patterns of browsing intensity, diet quality, and tree species selection were then linked to lynx risk, hunting intensity, recreation intensity, and distance to human settlements. Our results showed that (1) browsing intensity strongly decreased with increasing recreational activities, whereas it increased with lynx risk; (2) only in close proximity to human settlements tree browsing was higher in dense habitats and (3) a higher diet quality was obtained. (4) We found a stronger avoidance of the less preferred tree species in high-hunting intensity areas. In conclusion, our results indicate that the risk effects of human activities outweigh those of a natural large carnivore. Thus, highlighting the importance of taking those activities into account in predicting the impacts of large carnivores on ungulates and their plant-food choices.
-
Khorozyan, Igor & Heurich, Marco Dietmar
(2022).
Large-Scale Sheep Losses to Wolves (Canis lupus) in Germany Are Related to the Expansion of the Wolf Population but Not to Increasing Wolf Numbers.
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.
ISSN 2296-701X.
10.
doi:
10.3389/fevo.2022.778917.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Recovery of predator populations triggers conflicts due to livestock depredation losses, particularly in Germany where the wolf (Canis lupus) population grows exponentially and livestock (especially sheep) losses raise public concerns and motivate the authorities to control wolf numbers. Yet, the effects of wolf numbers and alternative factors, such as abundance of prey and livestock, on livestock losses in this country are not investigated. In this study, we collected and analyzed data on the numbers of reproductive units of wolves (packs and pairs together) as a surrogate of adult wolf numbers, sheep killed by wolves, living sheep, red deer (Cervus elaphus), roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), and wild boar (Sus scrofa) in every German state and year from 2002 to 2019. We applied a negative binomial Generalized Linear Mixed Model (GLMM) to estimate the effects of these predictors on the numbers of sheep killed by wolves. We also examined the relationships between the percentages of killed/living sheep and the numbers of living sheep. Ranking of 63 models based on the Akaike information criterion revealed that sheep losses were determined by state, year, and number of living sheep, not by wolf numbers, at high precision and accuracy. The number of sheep killed by wolves increased consistently by 41% per year and by 30% for every additional 10,000 sheep, mainly in the north where most wolf territories are concentrated. This means that sheep are protected insufficiently and/or ineffectively. The percentages of killed/living sheep consistently increased by 0.02–0.05% per state and year, with the maximum percentage of 0.7%, on a backdrop of decreasing numbers of living sheep. In conclusion, we demonstrate that sheep losses in Germany have been driven by the expansion of the wolf population, not by wolf numbers, and by the number of sheep available. We suggest that Germany’s wolf conservation policy should focus on alternative nonlethal interventions, enforcement and standardization of intervention monitoring, and promotion of wolf tolerance rather than on lethal control of wolf population size.
-
Duncanson, Laura; Kellner, James R.; Armston, John; Dubayah, Ralph; Minor, David M. & Hancock, Steven
[Show all 118 contributors for this article]
(2022).
Aboveground biomass density models for NASA's Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) lidar mission.
Remote Sensing of Environment.
ISSN 0034-4257.
270.
doi:
10.1016/j.rse.2021.112845.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
NASA’s Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) is collecting spaceborne full waveform lidar data with a primary science goal of producing accurate estimates of forest aboveground biomass density (AGBD). This paper presents the development of the models used to create GEDI’s footprint-level (~25 m) AGBD (GEDI04_A) product, including a description of the datasets used and the procedure for final model selection. The data used to fit our models are from a compilation of globally distributed spatially and temporally coincident field and airborne lidar datasets, whereby we simulated GEDI-like waveforms from airborne lidar to build a calibration database. We used this database to expand the geographic extent of past waveform lidar studies, and divided the globe into four broad strata by Plant Functional Type (PFT) and six geographic regions. GEDI’s waveform-to-biomass models take the form of parametric Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) models with simulated Relative Height (RH) metrics as predictor variables. From an exhaustive set of candidate models, we selected the best input predictor variables, and data transformations for each geographic stratum in the GEDI domain to produce a set of comprehensive predictive footprint-level models. We found that model selection frequently favored combinations of RH metrics at the 98th, 90th, 50th, and 10th height above ground-level percentiles (RH98, RH90, RH50, and RH10, respectively), but that inclusion of lower RH metrics (e.g. RH10) did not markedly improve model performance. Second, forced inclusion of RH98 in all models was important and did not degrade model performance, and the best performing models were parsimonious, typically having only 1-3 predictors. Third, stratification by geographic domain (PFT, geographic region) improved model performance in comparison to global models without stratification. Fourth, for the vast majority of strata, the best performing models were fit using square root transformation of field AGBD and/or height metrics. There was considerable variability in model performance across geographic strata, and areas with sparse training data and/or high AGBD values had the poorest performance. These models are used to produce global predictions of AGBD, but will be improved in the future as more and better training data become available.
-
Ripari, Lucia; Premier, Joe; Belotti, Elisa; Bluhm, Hendrik; Breitenmoser-Würsten, Christine & Bufka, Luděk
[Show all 23 contributors for this article]
(2022).
Human disturbance is the most limiting factor driving habitat selection of a large carnivore throughout Continental Europe.
Biological Conservation.
ISSN 0006-3207.
266.
doi:
10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109446.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Habitat selection is a multi-scale process driven by trade-offs between benefits, such as resource abundance, and disadvantages, such as the avoidance of risk. The latter includes human disturbances, to which large carnivores, with their large spatial requirements, are especially sensitive. We investigated the ecological processes underlying multi-scale habitat selection of a large carnivore, namely Eurasian lynx, across European landscapes characterized by different levels of human modification. Using a unique dataset of 125 lynx from 9 study sites across Europe, we compared used and available locations within landscape and home-range scales using a novel Mixed Effect randomForest approach, while considering environmental predictors as proxies for human disturbances and environmental resources. At the landscape scale, lynx avoided roads and human settlements, while at the home-range scale natural landscape features associated with shelter and prey abundance were more important. The results showed sex was of relatively low variable importance for lynx's general habitat selection behaviour. We found increasingly homogeneous responses across study sites with finer selection scales, suggesting that study site differences determined coarse selection, while utilization of resources at the finer selection scale was broadly universal. Thereby describing lynx's requirement, if not preference, for heterogeneous forests and shelter from human disturbances and implying that regional differences in coarse-scale selection are driven by availability rather than preference. These results provide crucial information for conserving this species in human-dominated landscapes, as well as for the first time, to our knowledge, generalising habitat selection behaviour of a large carnivore species at a continental scale.
-
Heurich, Marco Dietmar
(2021).
Minimizing the Annotation Effort for Detecting Wildlife in Camera Trap Images with Active Learning.
GI-Edition Lecture Notes in Informatics (LNI).
ISSN 1617-5468.
doi:
10.18420/informatik2021-042.
-
Calkoen, Suzanne T. S. van Beeck; Kreikenbohm, Rebekka; Kuijper, Dries P. J. & Heurich, Marco Dietmar
(2021).
Olfactory cues of large carnivores modify red deer behavior and browsing intensity
.
Behavioral Ecology.
ISSN 1045-2249.
32(5),
p. 982–992.
doi:
10.1093/beheco/arab071.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
This study examined the effect of perceived predation risk imposed by lynx (Lynx lynx) and wolf (Canis lupus) on red deer (Cervus elaphus) foraging behavior under experimental conditions. We hypothesized that in response to large carnivore scent red deer would increase their vigilance, although reducing the frequency and duration of visits to foraging sites. Consequently, browsing intensity on tree saplings was expected to decrease, whereas a higher proportion of more preferred species was expected to be browsed to compensate for higher foraging costs. We expected stronger responses towards the ambush predator lynx, compared with the cursorial predator wolf. These hypotheses were tested in a cafeteria experiment conducted within three red deer enclosures, each containing four experimental plots with olfactory cues of wolf, lynx, cow, and water as control. On each plot, a camera trap was placed and browsing intensity was measured for one consecutive week, repeated three times. Red deer reduced their visitation duration and browsing intensity on plots with large carnivore scent. Despite red deer showing a clear preference for certain tree species, the presence of large carnivore scent did not change selectivity towards different tree species. Contrary to our hypothesis, we found more pronounced effects of wolf (cursorial) compared with lynx (ambush). This study is the first to experimentally assess the perceived risk effects on the red deer foraging behavior of large carnivores differing in hunting modes. Our findings provide insights into the role of olfactory cues in predator-prey interactions and how they can modify fine-scale herbivore-plant interactions.
-
Bergvall, Ulrika A.; Morellet, Nicolas; Kjellander, Petter; Rauset, Geir R.; De Groeve, Johannes & Borowik, Tomasz
[Show all 16 contributors for this article]
(2021).
Settle down! ranging behaviour responses of roe deer to different capture and release methods.
Animals.
ISSN 2076-2615.
11(11).
doi:
10.3390/ani11113299.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we provide global maps of soil temperature and bioclimatic variables at a 1-km² resolution for 0–5 and 5–15 cm soil depth. These maps were created by calculating the difference (i.e., offset) between in-situ soil temperature measurements, based on time series from over 1200 1-km² pixels (summarized from 8500 unique temperature sensors) across all the world’s major terrestrial biomes, and coarse-grained air temperature estimates from ERA5-Land (an atmospheric reanalysis by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts). We show that mean annual soil temperature differs markedly from the corresponding gridded air temperature, by up to 10°C (mean = 3.0 ± 2.1°C), with substantial variation across biomes and seasons. Over the year, soils in cold and/or dry biomes are substantially warmer (+3.6 ± 2.3°C) than gridded air temperature, whereas soils in warm and humid environments are on average slightly cooler (-0.7 ± 2.3°C). The observed substantial and biome-specific offsets emphasize that the projected impacts of climate and climate change on near-surface biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are inaccurately assessed when air rather than soil temperature is used, especially in cold environments. The global soil-related bioclimatic variables provided here are an important step fThe fitting of tracking devices to wild animals requires capture and handling which causes stress and can potentially cause injury, behavioural modifications that can affect animal welfare and the output of research. We evaluated post capture and release ranging behaviour responses of roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) for five different capture methods. We analysed the distance from the centre of gravity and between successive locations, using data from 14 different study sites within the EURODEER collaborative project. Independently of the capture method, we observed a shorter distance between successive locations and contextual shift away from the home range centre of gravity after the capture and release event. However, individuals converged towards the average behaviour within a relatively short space of time (between 10 days and one month). If researchers investigate questions based on the distance between successive locations of the home range, we recommend (1) initial investigation to establish when the animals start to behave normally again or (2) not using the first two to three weeks of data for their analysis. We also encourage researchers to continually adapt methods to minimize stress and prioritize animal welfare wherever possible, according to the Refinement of the Three R’s.
box trap; Capreolus capreolus; net drives; net trap; roe deer; 3R’s
-
-
Shi, Yifang; Wang, Tiejun; Skidmore, Andrew; Hotzwarth, Stefanie; Heiden, Uta & Heurich, Marco Dietmar
(2021).
Mapping individual silver fir trees using hyperspectral and LiDAR data in a Central European mixed forest.
International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation.
ISSN 1569-8432.
98.
doi:
10.1016/j.jag.2021.102311.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Mapping a specific tree species at individual tree level across landscapes using remote sensing is challenging, especially in forests where co-occurring tree species exhibit similar characteristics. In Central European mixed forests, silver fir and Norway spruce have been identified as a pair of coniferous tree species with similar spectral and structural characteristics, typically leading to a major misclassification error in mapping studies. Here, we aimed to accurately map individual silver fir trees in a spruce-dominated natural forest in the Bavarian Forest National Park using integrated airborne hyperspectral and LiDAR data. To accomplish this goal, we extracted a set of relevant spectral and structural features from the hyperspectral and LiDAR data and used them to build machine learning classification models. Specifically, we compared the performance of three one-class classification algorithms (i.e. one-class support vector machine, biased support vector machine, and maximum entropy) for mapping individual silver fir trees. Our results showed that the biased support vector machine classifier yielded the highest mapping accuracy, with the area under the curve for positive and unlabeled samples (puAUC) achieving 0.95 (kappa 0.90). We found that the intensity value of 95th percentile of normalized tree height and the percentage of first returns above 2 m high were the most influential structural features, capturing the main morphological difference between silver fir and Norway spruce at the top tree crown. We also found that the wavebands at 700.1 nm, 714.5 nm, and 1201.6 nm were the most robust spectral bands, which are strongly affected by chlorophyll and foliar water content. Our study suggests that discovering links between spectral and structural features captured by different remotely sensed data and species-specific traits can significantly improve the mapping accuracy of a focal species at the individual tree level.
-
Janik, Tomas; Peters, Wibke; Salek, Martin; Romportl, Dusan; Jirku, Miloslav & Engleder, Thomas
[Show all 9 contributors for this article]
(2021).
The declining occurrence of moose (Alces alces) at the southernmost edge of its range raise conservation concerns.
Ecology and Evolution.
ISSN 2045-7758.
11(10),
p. 5468–5483.
doi:
10.1002/ece3.7441.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
The border region between Austria, the Czech Republic, and Germany harbors the most south-western occurrence of moose in continental Europe. The population originated in Poland, where moose survived, immigrated from former Soviet Union or were reintroduced after the Second World War expanded west- and southwards. In recent years, the distribution of the nonetheless small Central European population seems to have declined, necessitating an evaluation of its current status. In this study, existing datasets of moose observations from 1958 to 2019 collected in the three countries were combined to create a database totaling 771 records (observations and deaths). The database was then used to analyze the following: (a) changes in moose distribution, (b) the most important mortality factors, and (c) the availability of suitable habitat as determined using a maximum entropy approach. The results showed a progressive increase in the number of moose observations after 1958, with peaks in the 1990s and around 2010, followed by a relatively steep drop after 2013. Mortality within the moose population was mostly due to human interactions, including 13 deadly wildlife-vehicle collisions, particularly on minor roads, and four animals that were either legally culled or poached. Our habitat model suggested that higher altitudes (ca. 700–1,000 m a.s.l.), especially those offering wetlands, broad-leaved forests and natural grasslands, are the preferred habitats of moose whereas steep slopes and areas of human activity are avoided. The habitat model also revealed the availability of large core areas of suitable habitat beyond the current distribution, suggesting that habitat was not the limiting factor explaining the moose distribution in the study area. Our findings call for immediate transboundary conservation measures to sustain the moose population, such as those aimed at preventing wildlife-vehicle collisions and illegal killings. Infrastructure planning and development activities must take into account the habitat requirements of moose.
-
Risely, Alice; Gillingham, Mark A.F.; Bechet, Arnaud; Brändel, Stefan; Heni, Alezander C. & Heurich, Marco Dietmar
[Show all 11 contributors for this article]
(2021).
Phylogeny-and abundance-based metrics allow for the consistent comparison of core gut microbiome diversity indices across host species.
Frontiers in Microbiology.
ISSN 1664-302X.
12(5).
doi:
10.3389/fmicb.2021.659918.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
The filtering of gut microbial datasets to retain high prevalence taxa is often performed to identify a common core gut microbiome that may be important for host biological functions. However, prevalence thresholds used to identify a common core are highly variable, and it remains unclear how they affect diversity estimates and whether insights stemming from core microbiomes are comparable across studies. We hypothesized that if macroecological patterns in gut microbiome prevalence and abundance are similar across host species, then we would expect that increasing prevalence thresholds would yield similar changes to alpha diversity and beta dissimilarity scores across host species datasets. We analyzed eight gut microbiome datasets based on 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing and collected from different host species to (1) compare macroecological patterns across datasets, including amplicon sequence variant (ASV) detection rate with sequencing depth and sample size, occupancy-abundance curves, and rank-abundance curves; (2) test whether increasing prevalence thresholds generate universal or host-species specific effects on alpha and beta diversity scores; and (3) test whether diversity scores from prevalence-filtered core communities correlate with unfiltered data. We found that gut microbiomes collected from diverse hosts demonstrated similar ASV detection rates with sequencing depth, yet required different sample sizes to sufficiently capture rare ASVs across the host population. This suggests that sample size rather than sequencing depth tends to limit the ability of studies to detect rare ASVs across the host population. Despite differences in the distribution and detection of rare ASVs, microbiomes exhibited similar occupancy-abundance and rank-abundance curves. Consequently, increasing prevalence thresholds generated remarkably similar trends in standardized alpha diversity and beta dissimilarity across species datasets until high thresholds above 70%. At this point, diversity scores tended to become unpredictable for some diversity measures. Moreover, high prevalence thresholds tended to generate diversity scores that correlated poorly with the original unfiltered data. Overall, we recommend that high prevalence thresholds over 70% are avoided, and promote the use of diversity measures that account for phylogeny and abundance (Balance-weighted phylogenetic diversity and Weighted Unifrac for alpha and beta diversity, respectively), because we show that these measures are insensitive to prevalence filtering and therefore allow for the consistent comparison of core gut microbiomes across studies without the need for prevalence filtering.
-
von Hoerman, Christian; Lackner, Tomas; Sommer, David; Heurich, Marco Dietmar; Benbow, M. Eric & Müller, Jörg
(2021).
Carcasses at Fixed Locations Host a Higher Diversity of Necrophilous Beetles.
Insects.
ISSN 2075-4450.
12(5).
doi:
10.3390/insects12050412.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Whereas vertebrate scavengers have a higher diversity reported at randomly placed carcasses, the drivers of insect diversity on carrion, such as the exposure type (fixed versus random) or the carrion species, are still incompletely understood. We analyzed beetle diversity at differently exposed carcasses in the low-range mountain forest of the Bavarian Forest National Park in Germany. We tested if scavenging beetles, similarly to vertebrate scavengers, show a higher diversity at randomly placed carcasses compared to easily manageable fixed places. Ninety-two beetle species at 29 exposed wildlife carcasses (roe, red deer, and red foxes) were detected. Beetle diversity was higher at fixed locations possessing extended highly nutrient-rich cadaver decomposition islands as important refuges for threatened red-listed species, such as Necrobia violacea (Coleoptera: Cleridae). Particularly noticeable in our insect traps were the following two rare species, the “primitive” carrion beetle Necrophilus subterraneus (Coleoptera: Agyrtidae) and the false clown beetle Sphaerites glabratus (Coleoptera: Sphaeritidae). In Europe, only the species S. glabratus out of the genus Sphaerites is present. This emphasizes the importance of carrion for biodiversity conservation. We clearly show the relevance of leaving and additional providing wildlife carcasses in a dedicated place in protected forests for preserving very rare and threatened beetle species as essential members of the decomposing community.
-
Palmero, Stefano; Belotti, Elisa; Bufka, Ludek; Gahbauer, Martin; Heibl, Christoph & Premier, Joe
[Show all 8 contributors for this article]
(2021).
Demography of a Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) population within a strictly protected area in Central Europe.
Scientific Reports.
ISSN 2045-2322.
11.
doi:
10.1038/s41598-021-99337-2.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Large carnivores promote crucial ecosystem processes but are increasingly threatened by human persecution and habitat destruction. Successful conservation of this guild requires information on long-term population dynamics obtained through demographic surveys. We used camera traps to monitor Eurasian lynx between 2009 and 2018 in a strictly protected area in the Bohemian Forest Ecosystem, located in the core of the distribution of the Bohemian–Bavarian–Austrian lynx population. Thereby, we estimated sex-specific demographic parameters using spatial capture–recapture (SCR) models. Over 48,677 trap nights, we detected 65 unique lynx individuals. Density increased from 0.69 to 1.33 and from 1.09 to 2.35 individuals/100 km2 for open and closed population SCR models, respectively, with corresponding positive population growth rates (mean = 1.06). Estimated yearly sex-specific survival probabilities for the entire monitoring period were high (females 82%, males 90%) and per capita recruitment rate was low (females 12%, males 9%), indicating a low yearly population turnover. We ascertained an average number of recruits of 1.97 and a generation time of 2.64 years when considering resident reproducing females. We confirmed that reproduction in the study area took place successfully every year. Despite the overall increase in local lynx densities, the number of detected family groups remained constant throughout the study period. These results indicated that the strictly protected study area acts as a source for the multi-use landscapes in its surroundings. In this first open population SCR study on lynx, we provide sex-specific demographic parameters that are fundamental information for lynx management in the study area as well as in similar contexts Europe-wide.
-
Xin, Zong; Wang, Tiejun; Skidmore, Andrew & Heurich, Marco Dietmar
(2021).
Estimating fine-scale visibility in a temperate forest landscape using airborne laser scanning.
International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation.
ISSN 1569-8432.
103.
doi:
10.1016/j.jag.2021.102478.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Visibility is a key factor influencing animal behavior in forest ecosystems. Fine-scale visibility in forested areas has been measured by ground-based approaches at the plot level, using site-specific methods that have limited spatial coverage. Here we examine airborne laser scanning (ALS) as a novel tool to quantify fine-scale visibility in the temperate forests of Germany at a landscape scale. We validate the (vertically-derived) ALS-derived visibility measures using proven (horizontally-derived) terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) estimates of true visibility. Our results indicate that there is a good agreement between the visibility resulting from ALS and TLS with an R2 ranging from 0.53 to 0.84 and a normalized RMSE varying from 15.92% to 11.81% at various plot sizes, with the highest accuracy achieved using a plot size of 35 × 35 m. Our study demonstrates for the first time that ALS can be successfully applied to quantify fine-scale visibility in temperate forests at a landscape level. This approach holds potential for studying the spatial behavior of animals (e.g., habitat selection and predator–prey relationships) in forest ecosystems.
-
Bödeker, Kai; Ammer, Christian; Knoke, Thomas & Heurich, Marco Dietmar
(2021).
Determining Statistically Robust Changes in Ungulate Browsing Pressure as a Basis for Adaptive Wildlife Management.
Forests.
ISSN 1999-4907.
12(8).
doi:
10.3390/f12081030.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Ungulate browsing has a major impact on the composition and structure of forests.
Repeatedly conducted, large-scale regeneration inventories can monitor the extent of browsing
pressure and its impacts on forest regeneration development. Based on the respective results, the
necessity and extent of wildlife management activities such as hunting, fencing, etc., can be identified
at a landscape scale. However, such inventories have rarely been integrated into wildlife management
decision making. In this article, we evaluate a regeneration inventory method which was carried
out in the Bavarian Forest National Park between 2007 and 2018. We predict the browsing impact by
calculating browsing probabilities using a logistic mixed effect model. To provide wildlife managers
with feedback on their activities, we developed a test which can assess significant changes in
browsing probability between different inventory periods. To find the minimum observable browsing
probability change, we simulated ungulate browsing based on the data of a potential browsing
indicator species (Sorbus aucuparia) in the National Park. Sorbus aucuparia is evenly distributed,
commonly found, selectively browsed and meets the ecosystem development objectives in our study
area. We were able to verify a browsing probability change down to ±5 percentage points with
a sample size of about 1,000 observations per inventory run. In view of the size of the National
Park and the annual fluctuations in browsing pressure, this estimation accuracy seems sufficient. In
seeking the maximal cost-efficiency, we were able to reduce this sample size in a sensitivity analysis
by about two thirds without severe loss of information for wildlife management. Based on our
findings, the presented inventory method combined with our evaluation tool has the potential to be
a robust and efficient instrument to assess the impact of herbivores that are in the National Park and
other regions.
-
Latifi, Hooman; Holzwarth, Stefanie; Skidmore, Andrew; Bruna, Josef; Cervenka, Jaroslav & Darvishzadeh, Roshanak
[Show all 15 contributors for this article]
(2021).
A laboratory for conceiving Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs)—The ‘Data pool initiative for the Bohemian Forest Ecosystem’.
Methods in Ecology and Evolution.
ISSN 2041-210X.
doi:
10.1111/2041-210X.13695.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Effects of climate change-induced events on forest ecosystem dynamics of composition, function and structure call for increased long-term, interdisciplinary and integrated research on biodiversity indicators, in particular within strictly protected areas with extensive non-intervention zones. The long-established concept of forest supersites generally relies on long-term funds from national agencies and goes beyond the logistic and financial capabilities of state-or region-wide protected area administrations, universities and research institutes. We introduce the concept of data pools as a smaller-scale, user-driven and reasonable alternative to co-develop remote sensing and forest ecosystem science to validated products, biodiversity indicators and management plans. We demonstrate this concept with the Bohemian Forest Ecosystem Data Pool, which has been established as an interdisciplinary, international data pool within the strictly protected Bavarian Forest and Šumava National Parks and currently comprises 10 active partners. We demonstrate how the structure and impact of the data pool differs from comparable cases. We assessed the international influence and visibility of the data pool with the help of a systematic literature search and a brief analysis of the results. Results primarily suggest an increase in the impact and visibility of published material during the life span of the data pool, with highest visibilities achieved by research
conducted on leaf traits, vegetation phenology and 3D-based
forest inventory. We conclude that the data pool results in an efficient contribution to the concept of global biodiversity observatory by evolving towards a training platform, functioning as a pool of data and algorithms, directly communicating with management for implementation and providing test fields for feasibility studies on earth observation missions.
View all works in Cristin
Addresses
Postal Address
Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences
Postboks 400 Vestad
2418 Elverum
Norway
