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，但还没有工具来系统地量化这一点，估计依赖于问卷，这些问卷本质上不可靠，因为它们要求受访者供认罪行。动物知道它们的敌人；斑马逃离狮子，瞪羚逃离猎豹，那些人类狩猎逃离我们。衡量动物将人类视为威胁的程度，通过测试它们是否躲避人类的声音，猎犬或枪声可以揭示哪些动物被猎杀，以及猎杀的强度有多大；至关重要的是，动物没有理由在这一点上撒谎。“恐惧生态”是我研究项目的重点，我一直成功地在顶尖期刊(如“科学”、“自然通讯”)上发表论文，吸引了国际媒体的关注，证明了恐惧本身，包括对人类的恐惧，强大到足以影响人口和生态系统层面的过程。我设计了全球独一无二的自动行为反应(ABR)系统，用于实验测试野生动物对本文要求的偷猎的反应，其有效性和拟议研究的优点已经在《生态学与进化方法》和《行为生态学》的论文中得到验证。我正在向NSERC申请80个ABR的资金。我迫切需要这台设备，这对我抓住机会领导有史以来第一次对偷猎对热带生物多样性构成的威胁进行全球实验评估至关重要；该设备将与史密森学会、国际保护组织、野生动物保护学会和牛津大学S野生动物保护研究小组合作进行。我提议的研究计划有望在这一学科上取得重大进展，并在保护区管理方面进行变革，首次为管理人员提供一种工具(ABR)，以准确诊断偷猎的程度，从而确定打击偷猎所需的资源。为了抓住这个非同寻常的机会，我需要100个ABR在世界各地的10个研究地点进行重复实验，这些地点由我的国际合作者运营。由于迫切需要启动拟议的研究及其公认的优点，我从我的大学获得了5万美元的研究加速器拨款，用于购买20个ABR，并抵消部署所有100个ABR系统所需的成本。我从乌干达招募了一名女王伊丽莎白二世钻石周年纪念奖学金博士生来帮助领导这项研究，他们的工作如果没有所需的设备就无法进行；我将为每年至少10名本科生和研究生提供使用这一创新的新研究工具(ABR)的动手培训，从而使他们获得保护研究、保护区管理、旅游业、政府政策制定和学术界所需的市场技能。

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.