Moving in the Anthropocene: Global reductions in terrestrial mammalian movements
Made available in DSpace on 2018-11-26T17:44:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2018-01-26 Robert Bosch Foundation Animal movement is fundamental for ecosystem functioning and species survival, yet the effects of the anthropogenic footprint on animal movements have not been estimated across species. Using a unique GPS-tracking database of 803 individuals across 57 species, we found that movements of mammals in areas with a comparatively high human footprint were on average one-half to one-third the extent of their movements in areas with a low human footprint. We attribute this reduction to behavioral changes of individual animals and to the exclusion of species with long-…
Data from: Moving in the Anthropocene: global reductions in terrestrial mammalian movements
Animal movement is fundamental for ecosystem functioning and species survival, yet the effects of the anthropogenic footprint on animal movements have not been estimated across species. Using a unique GPS-tracking database of 803 individuals across 57 species, we found that movements of mammals in areas with a comparatively high human footprint were on average one-half to one-third the extent of their movements in areas with a low human footprint. We attribute this reduction to behavioral changes of individual animals and to the exclusion of species with long-range movements from areas with higher human impact. Global loss of vagility alters a key ecological trait of animals that affects no…
Measuring progress towards rewilding
Human domination of land has transformed ecosystems, modified ecological processes and influenced biodiversity composition across most of the terrestrial biosphere. Nevertheless, this global change does not necessarily translate into a total depletion of natural values. Innovative conservation actions are emerging as a promising strategy to enhance biodiversity, ecological resilience and ecosystem service delivery, as well as to retain ecological and evolutionary potential. For instance, rewilding projects have gained increasing attention from scientists, conservationists, practitioners, decision-makers and the media. Recovering the natural dynamics of ecosystems requires increasing ecosyst…
Artificial feeding of wildlife: where do we go?
Food provisioning to wildlife is an issue of increasing conservation concern due to its consequences on species and ecosystems. Humans have increased the amount of food available to wildlife and its spatio-temporal predictability; about 30–40% of all food produced in the world is wasted (1). One of these practices, quite widespread, is the artificial feeding of game animals. Here, we take the brown bear Ursus arctos as a model species to review the magnitude of artificial feeding in Europe and the documented effects on the ecology and behavior of the species. In most of the European countries where brown bears are hunted, artificial feeding is applied, mostly to facilitate hunting. However,…
Direct and indirect impacts of climate change and land use change over biodiversity: a case of study with the brown bear in Europe
Climate and land use changes are the main drivers of biodiversity loss and species distribution range contractions. Previous studies have primarily explored the direct effects of these drivers on biodiversity while ignoring the indirect effects that come through other species. Models ignoring these mechanisms are prone to erroneous predictions of how global change impacts biodiversity, which impedes our ability to make effective management decision for biodiversity conservation. Here, we focus on the brown bear (Ursus arctos), a well-studied omnivore species that has trophic interactions with many different taxa. We aim understand how direct and indirect impacts of climate and land use chan…