Stakeholders Diverse Interests in Endangered Vulture Conservation The Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus) is an endangered bird native across northern Africa, the Middle East, and as far east as the Indian subcontinent. Researchers asked diverse stakeholders including hunters, ranchers, and tourists in northern Spain (the upper range of the vulture’s distribution) about their knowledge of the species…
Tag: Birds
What We’re Reading- March 2, 2018
Rock Art Natural History Many ecologists are interested in the distribution of species and how community composition changes over time. In the present, we can go into the field and survey for species presence and absence. However, to infer species distributions in the past we either have to have fossils or zooarcheological evidence, or less…
How the sugar glider got to Tasmania and why this is bad news for difficult birds
When is a native species also invasive, and how can we tell? This may seem a strange question, but it highlights the difficulty we sometimes face determining the boundaries of the area in which a species naturally occurs. Especially when detection is imperfect and those boundaries may change over time. Animals move. Plants move. Sometimes…
What We’re Reading- Jan 5, 2018
Happy New Year from the WildlifeSNPits team! All the Pretty Birds This open paper investigated the phylogenetic and biogeographic relationships between Kingfishers, an order of birds with 114 species. Kingfishers are known for their beautiful bright colors, but how the different species are related to each other was partially unknown. The authors inferred that kingfishers…
What We’re Reading- Sept 29, 2017
Genetic Diversity on the Sea Floor We have so much to learn about the biodiversity in the deep ocean. But for the species we do know, we have barely scratched the surface of understand the genetic diversity of these species. This meta-analysis reviews all population genetic papers (a scant 77) about genetic diversity and population…
What We’re Reading- Sept 15, 2017
If You Sing It, They Will Come (and Occupy New Habitat Patches) One of the biggest threats to species are small isolated habitat patches, where species can be extirpated (i.e. go locally extinct) from any patch. The endangered Kirkland’s warbler (Setophaga kirtlandii) lives in these types of patchy pine forests near the Great Lakes in…
What is Urban Evolution?
In 2009 the United Nations reported that half of the world’s human population lived in cities and was expected to grow to 66% by 2050. The movement of people from dispersed living to concentration in urban environments is a large change both for human civilization and for the environment. Urbanization is the process of changing…
What We’re Reading- May 26, 2017
Protect Krill to Protect Whales We previously wrote about the importance of krill (marine invertebrates) for supporting oceanic ecosystems. This paper (sub) compared the movement of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangiliae) to tonnage of krill harvested around the West Antarctic peninsula. The authors found a correlation between spatial areas where the whales spent the most time and…
What We’re Reading- Feb 17, 2017
Endangered Populations Growing in Size But Still at Risk The Little Spotted Kiwi (Apteryx owenii) is a near threatened bird species that once inhabited forests throughout New Zealand, but is now constricted to near shore islands devoid of introduced predators. Each of the eight islands the birds now inhabit was founded by a different number…
What We’re Reading- Dec 2, 2016
Birds of Differentially Colored Feathers Still Flock Together Yellow-winged warblers (left in picture) are threatened with extinction in Canada under SARA, and a candidate species for the ESA in the United States. Hybridization with the more widely distributed blue-winged warbler (right in picture) is considered a threat to the species. This paper (open) compared genomic…
Keep Wildlife Wild: Don’t Feed the Animals
I was having lunch with several wildlife managers during the 24th International Conference on Bear Research and Management, and asked them, “what is the one conservation message you want to get out to the public?” And I loved this response from Colleen Olfenbuttel (North Carolina’s bear and furbearer manager): “Keep bears wild.” There are several…
What We’re Reading: May 13, 2016
Citizen Science Can Instill Conservation Attitudes This paper (sub) investigates the attitudes of people participating in COASST, Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team, a citizen science program focusing on beached birds. Even without specific educational goals, participants increased their conservation stewardship and developed a strong sense of place for the beaches that they patrolled. For…
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