RAPID: Using an abrupt and complete cessation of tourism to test the relationship between species traits, movement and connectivity for large carnivore guilds in three ecosystems.

RAPID：利用突然完全停止的旅游业来测试三个生态系统中大型食肉动物群的物种特征、运动和连通性之间的关系。

• 批准号: 2032131
• 负责人: Scott Creel
• 金额: $ 16.9万
• 依托单位: Montana State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-06-15 至 2023-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2032131&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RAPID; Using; abrupt; complete; cessation

Due to habitat loss, many wild animals now live in small, isolated populations. Large predators are especially vulnerable because they always live in small populations and often come into conflict with humans. Understanding how they move in response to humans and how well they travel between populations (“connectivity”) are high priorities for their conservation and management. Scientists know that connectivity depends on features of the landscape -- for example, where predators on the move can find food and temporary shelter. Connectivity also depends on differences in behavior between species; some are bolder or more aggressive than others. This project tests a new idea about how movements of lions, hyenas, cheetahs and wild dogs are affected by human activities and by interactions with one another. These species are well-suited to test the new idea because they compete intensely with one another, occur mainly in isolated protected areas, and can travel long distances between those areas. Because COVID-19 has stopped all tourist activity in three protected areas where these species occur, researchers have a unique opportunity to collect data on how a large change in human presence affects these animals. The researchers will compare the animals' behavior before and during the pandemic. Documenting how differences between species affect their ability to move will help to develop policies to maintain critical connections between populations in an increasingly fragmented world. An additional benefit of this project is that it will provide students with mentoring and international experiences in field research.In combination with existing long-term data, this project will provide an unusual pseudo-experimental "difference in differences" test of how a change in human activity alters previously observed differences between species in their patterns of movement, and how these changes differ between ecosystems. Tests with multiple species at a range of temporal scales, across a set of ecosystems that differ in their pre-COVID intensity of human use, will advance our understanding of the manner in which species’ traits interact with human-affected landscapes to allow or prevent movement. Because virtually all species are affected by interspecific competition and by anthropogenic effects, our results will provide broad and generalizable advances in the integration of species’ ecology into models of connectivity.Funding for this project comes from the Population and Community Ecology program in the Division of Environmental Biology and from the Behavioral Systems program in the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

由于栖息地的丧失，许多野生动物现在生活在小而孤立的种群中。大型食肉动物特别容易受到攻击，因为它们总是生活在小种群中，经常与人类发生冲突。了解它们如何响应人类的移动以及它们在种群之间的移动（“连通性”）是它们的保护和管理的高度优先事项。科学家们知道，连通性取决于景观的特征-例如，移动中的捕食者可以找到食物和临时住所。连通性还取决于物种之间的行为差异;有些物种比其他物种更大胆或更具侵略性。这个项目测试了一个关于狮子、鬣狗、猎豹和野狗的运动如何受到人类活动和相互作用影响的新想法。这些物种非常适合测试这个新想法，因为它们彼此竞争激烈，主要出现在孤立的保护区，并且可以在这些地区之间长途旅行。由于COVID-19已经停止了这些物种发生的三个保护区的所有旅游活动，研究人员有一个独特的机会来收集人类存在的巨大变化如何影响这些动物的数据。研究人员将比较动物在大流行之前和期间的行为。记录物种之间的差异如何影响它们的移动能力，将有助于制定政策，在日益分散的世界中保持种群之间的重要联系。该项目的另一个好处是，它将为学生提供实地研究方面的指导和国际经验，结合现有的长期数据，该项目将提供一个不寻常的伪实验“差异中的差异”测试，人类活动的变化如何改变先前观察到的物种之间的运动模式差异，以及这些变化如何在生态系统之间存在差异。在一系列时间尺度上对多个物种进行测试，跨越一系列生态系统，这些生态系统在COVID前的人类使用强度不同，这将促进我们对物种特征与人类影响的景观相互作用的方式的理解，以允许或阻止运动。 因为几乎所有的物种都受到种间竞争和人为影响的影响，我们的研究结果将为将物种生态学整合到连通性模型中提供广泛和普遍的进展。该项目的资金来自环境生物学部的人口和社区生态学计划以及综合有机体系统部的行为系统计划。该奖项反映了NSF的法定基金会的使命是履行其使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评价，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

Hot or hungry? A tipping point in the effect of prey depletion on African wild dogs

热还是饿？

• DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2023.110043
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Biological Conservation
• 影响因子: 5.9
• 作者: Creel, Scott;Becker, Matthew S.;de Merkle, Johnathan Reyes;Goodheart, Ben
• 通讯作者: Goodheart, Ben

Low apex carnivore density does not release a subordinate competitor when driven by prey depletion

• DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109273
• 发表时间: 2021-08-07
• 期刊: BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION
• 影响因子: 5.9
• 作者: Goodheart, Ben;Creel, Scott;Simukonda, Chuma
• 通讯作者: Simukonda, Chuma