iDeer: An Integrated Deer Management Platform

近几十年来，整个北半球的野鹿数量急剧增加。英国是六种鹿的家园，它们可以对我们都赖以生存的自然系统产生重大影响。鹿能够迅速地在新形成的林地上定居，它可以通过觅食幼树、树苗和幼苗来抑制生长。因此，鹿对政府的雄心勃勃的目标构成了严峻的挑战，即将林地面积从占英国土地面积的13%增加到18%，并在2050年实现净零。因此，参与林地管理的人为鹿的影响制定计划是至关重要的。尽管管理鹿的数量和设计种植方案以减轻它们的影响比以往任何时候都更加重要，但管理鹿是具有挑战性的。它们是跨越人工边界的高度机动的动物，它们在当地的觅食决定是由更广阔的景观的环境特征驱动的。因此，当地对单一物业的管理行动可能会引发影响，影响整个景观，并影响鹿对其他地方土地的影响。例如，在林地设置栅栏可能会将鹿转移到邻近的农田，或者在当地种植树木会改变林地的覆盖和景观规模的配置，从而影响鹿的移动和对其他地方的影响。英格兰和威尔士的乡村景观由土地用途和土地所有者的拼凑而成，他们的管理目标各不相同，甚至相互冲突，包括对鹿的不同看法。事实上，尽管鹿对许多土地所有者来说是一种“害虫”，但它在文化和经济上都受到其他人的重视。在这种情况下，影响鹿的行为和觅食偏好的林地创造和管理决策对于确保林地的成功扩张是必要的。例如，这些决定可能包括在哪里选址新的林地、设置栅栏、改变林地树木的种类和结构、或提供替代食物资源或驱鹿。然而，土地所有者可能不知道这些选择，它们的有效性，或者它们背后的科学证据。事实上，尽管来自温带的大量文献证明了对鹿生态、影响和缓解的科学理解，但要将这些知识转化为管理实践，将当地专业知识和多个利益攸关方目标结合起来，仍有许多工作要做。Project iDeer旨在解决这一合并和实施差距。Project iDeer将提供一个共同设计的交互式决策支持工具-iDeer工具-促进战略性林地创建和管理，将鹿对英格兰和威尔士新的和现有的林地以及其他邻近土地的影响降至最低。从以前的项目中获得的土地所有者咨询明确了对数字决策支持工具的渴望，这种工具将当地知识与科学知识相结合，为土地管理计划提供信息。IDeer工具将输出‘风险地图’，使用户能够看到一个土地所有者在林地管理方面所做的选择将如何影响邻近土地和更广泛的景观上的鹿活动。例如，在一块地块上修建一公顷林地并用栅栏围起来，可能会增加邻近地块上的鹿对作物的干扰。用户将能够输出和比较这些风险地图，使他们能够就如何管理自己的土地做出明智的决定，同时也考虑到对邻居和更广泛的景观的影响。我们建议召集一个拥有林地和鹿生态、保护冲突、动物行为建模、社会科学方法和网络工具开发的集体专业知识的跨学科团队。解决方案-从一开始，我们将与参与林地和/或鹿管理的利益相关者合作，包括农民、林地管理者、公共林业机构和保护从业者，以确保iDeer工具实现其目标。

Wild deer populations have increased dramatically throughout the northern hemisphere during recent decades. The UK is home to six deer species that can substantially impact the natural systems that we all depend upon. Capable of rapidly colonising newly created woodlands, deer can inhibit growth by browsing young trees, saplings, and seedlings. Consequently, deer present a serious challenge to the government's ambitious target to increase woodland area from 13% to 18% of UK land area and achieve net zero by 2050. It is therefore essential that people involved in woodland management plan for deer impacts.Whilst managing deer populations and designing planting schemes to mitigate their impacts is more important than ever, managing deer is challenging. They are highly mobile animals that cross man-made boundaries, and their local foraging decisions are driven by environmental characteristics of the broader landscape. Consequently, local management actions on a single property can elicit effects that cascade across entire landscapes and influence deer impacts on land elsewhere. For example, fencing a woodland might displace deer to neighbouring farmland, or planting trees locally will alter woodland cover and configuration at the landscape scale, influencing deer movement and impacts elsewhere. Rural landscapes across England and Wales are comprised of patchworks of land uses and landowners with varying and even conflicting management objectives, including different views on deer. Indeed, while considered a 'pest' to many landowners, deer are culturally and economically valued by others. In such situations, woodland creation and management decisions that influence deer behaviour and foraging preferences are necessary to ensure successful woodland expansion. These decisions could include, for example, where to locate new woodlands, fencing, alterations to woodland tree species and structure, or the provision of alternative food resources or deer repellents. However, landowners may not be aware of these options, their effectiveness, or the scientific evidence behind them. Indeed, while scientific understanding of deer ecology, impacts and mitigation is evidenced by a vast literature from across the temperate zone, much remains to be done to translate this knowledge into management practice, in a way that integrates local expertise and multiple stakeholder objectives. Project iDeer has been designed to address this incorporation and implementation gap.Project iDeer will deliver a co-designed interactive decision support tool - the 'iDeer tool' - to facilitate strategic woodland creation and management that minimises deer impacts on new and existing woodland and other neighbouring land uses in England and Wales. Landowner consultations from previous projects have established a clear desire for digital decision support tools that integrate local with scientific knowledge to inform land management plans. The iDeer tool will output 'risk maps' that enable users to see how choices in woodland management made by one landowner will influence deer activity on neighbouring land and the wider landscape. For example, how the creation and fencing of one hectare of woodland on one land parcel might increase crop disturbance by deer on the neighbouring land parcel. Users will be able to output and compare these risk maps enabling them to make informed decisions about how to manage their land whilst also considering impacts on neighbours and the wider landscape.We propose to bring together an interdisciplinary team with collective expertise in woodland and deer ecology, conservation conflict, animal behaviour modelling, social science methods and web tool development. Solutions-focussed from the start, we will work with stakeholders that are involved in woodland and/or deer management, including farmers, woodland managers, public forestry bodies, and conservation practitioners, to ensure that the iDeer tool will achieve its aim.