Automated Behavioural Response (ABR) systems for conducting the first ever global experimental assessment of the threat poaching poses to tropical biodiversity

偷猎被认为是生物多样性丧失的两个主要原因之一，但一直没有工具来系统地量化这一点，估计数依赖于问卷调查，这些问卷调查本质上是不可靠的，因为它们要求受访者承认犯罪。动物知道他们的敌人;斑马逃离狮子，瞪羚逃离猎豹，而那些人类狩猎逃离我们。通过测试动物是否逃离人类、猎狗或枪声的声音来衡量它们将人类视为威胁的程度，可以揭示哪些动物被猎杀以及猎杀的强度;至关重要的是，动物没有理由在这一点上撒谎。“恐惧的生态学”是我研究计划的重点，我一直成功地在顶级期刊上发表论文（例如科学，自然通讯），吸引国际媒体的关注，证明恐惧本身，包括人类的恐惧，足以影响人口和生态系统水平的过程。我设计了全球唯一的自动行为反应（ABR）系统，用于实验测试野生动物对偷猎的反应，其有效性和拟议研究的优点已经在生态学和进化方法以及行为生态学的论文中得到验证。我请求NSERC为80个ABR提供资金。我迫切需要这种设备，这对我抓住机会领导有史以来第一次全球实验评估偷猎对热带生物多样性构成的威胁至关重要;将与史密森学会，保护国际，野生动物保护协会和牛津大学合作进行。野生动物保护研究单位。我提出的研究计划有望在学科上取得重大进展，并在保护区管理方面实现转型，首次为管理人员提供了一个工具（ABR）为了抓住这个非凡的机会，我需要100个ABR在10个研究地点进行重复实验。世界，由我的国际合作者经营。由于迫切需要启动拟议的研究，以及其公认的优点，我已经从我的大学获得了50，000美元的研究加速器赠款，用于购买20个ABR，并抵消部署所有100个ABR系统所需的成本。我已从乌干达招聘了一名新的伊丽莎白二世女王钻禧奖学金博士生，帮助领导这项研究，如果没有所要求的设备，他的工作就无法进行;我将为每年至少10名本科生和研究生提供使用这种创新研究工具（ABR）的实践培训，他们将因此获得保护研究职业所需的市场技能，保护区管理、旅游业、政府决策和学术界。

Poaching is thought to be one of the two main causes of biodiversity loss but there has been no tool to systematically quantify this, with estimates relying upon questionnaires that are intrinsically unreliable because they require respondents to confess to crimes. Animals know their enemies; zebras flee lions, gazelles flee cheetahs, and those humans hunt flee us. Measuring the degree to which animals perceive humans as a threat, by testing if they flee the sound of humans, hunting dogs or gunshots can reveal which are hunted and how intensively; and crucially, animals have no reason to lie about this. The “ecology of fear” is the focus of my research program and I have consistently successfully published papers in top journals (e.g. Science, Nature Communications), that attract international media attention, demonstrating that fear itself, including the fear of humans, is powerful enough to affect population- and ecosystem-level processes. I designed the globally-unique Automated Behavioural Response (ABR) systems for experimentally testing the responses of wildlife to poaching requested herein, and their effectiveness and the merit of the proposed research have already been verified in papers in Methods in Ecology and Evolution and Behavioral Ecology. I am requesting funds from NSERC for 80 ABRs. I urgently require this equipment critical to my seizing the opportunity to lead the first ever global experimental assessment of the threat poaching poses to tropical biodiversity; to be conducted in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution, Conservation International, the Wildlife Conservation Society and Oxford U.’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit. My proposed research program holds the promise of a major advance in the discipline and a transformation in protected areas management, providing managers for the first time with a tool (the ABR) to accurately diagnose the extent of poaching and thus the certain knowledge of the resources needed to combat it. To seize this extraordinary opportunity I require 100 ABRs to conduct replicated experiments at 10 research sites around the world, operated by my international collaborators. Because of the urgency of the need to initiate the proposed research, and its recognized merit, I have been awarded a $50,000 Research Accelerator grant from my university, to purchase 20 ABRs, and offset the costs entailed in deploying all 100 ABR systems. I have recruited a new Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Scholarship PhD student from Uganda to help lead this research, whose work cannot proceed without the requested equipment; and I will provide hands-on training in the use of this innovative new research tool (the ABR) to a minimum of 10 undergraduate and graduate students per year, who will thus be educated in marketable skills needed in careers in conservation research, protected areas management, tourism, governmental policy making and academia.