Animal Conservation最新文献

{"title":"Forest carnivores living on the edge with invasive predators","authors":"E. M. Wampole,&nbsp;Z. J. Farris,&nbsp;P. Razafy,&nbsp;B. D. Gerber","doi":"10.1111/acv.12926","DOIUrl":"10.1111/acv.12926","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The proliferation of forest edges and invasive predators have been identified as two primary threats to carnivore populations globally. These threats often occur in unison, facilitated by anthropogenic activities (e.g., fragmentation), and together may pose a greater influence than when they occur separately. Targeted conservation actions for forest carnivores, including Madagascar carnivores, have been hindered by a failure to understand the relative contributions of these factors in driving species declines. To fill this gap, we conducted an extensive camera survey along the edge of intact, continuous protected rainforests in eastern Madagascar to evaluate the extent invasive predators and forest edge separately and in combination affect native carnivore space use. We hypothesized that structural vegetation changes at the forest edge interact with invasive predator trap success and occurrence to reduce native carnivore space use near the forest edge and separately have less influence than when combined. In contrast to findings in fragmented and degraded forests of Madagascar, we found hard forest edge and invasive predators alone do not indiscriminately reduce native carnivore space use in continuous intact forest. Instead, we found free-roaming dogs and cats interact with their surrounding environment (i.e., forest edge) in unique ways that shape species response differently than within interior forest. At the forest edge, vegetational changes of increasing shrub cover and the occurrence of dogs reduce space use of three of four native carnivores. However, we found greater effects of proximity to villages, especially with high invasive predator activity (free-roaming cats). Ultimately, native carnivores showed variable sensitivities to pressures we examined, providing support for species-specific management actions to maximize conservation outcomes. We encourage future studies to consider evaluating the magnitude of separate and combined threats to carnivores. In doing so, conservationists can better identify when threats can be managed in isolation and when they require simultaneous mitigation.</p>","PeriodicalId":50786,"journal":{"name":"Animal Conservation","volume":"27 4","pages":"492-506"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2023-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138950685","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A multiple trait assessment provides insights into the short-time viability of a newly founded population in an endangered island passerine","authors":"Juan Carlos Illera,&nbsp;Alejandro Delgado,&nbsp;Domingo Trujillo,&nbsp;Luis M. Carrascal","doi":"10.1111/acv.12927","DOIUrl":"10.1111/acv.12927","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Determining the effectiveness of conservation actions is a priority in conservation biology, especially in island ecosystems which can host large numbers of endemic and often threatened species. In this study, we have brought together a genetic, body condition and breeding success assessment with the aim of evaluating the viability of a newly founded population of the endangered Gran Canaria blue chaffinch (<i>Fringilla polatzeki</i>), the forest passerine species with the most restricted distribution in the Western Palearctic. The species occurs exclusively in the Canary pine forests (<i>Pinus canariensis</i>) of the island of Gran Canaria, with the Inagua nature reserve harbouring the highest number individuals. In 2010, a translocation program was initiated within the same island in the nearby pine forests of La Cumbre with the goal of establishing a viable breeding population. Genetic results revealed that La Cumbre shows genetic parameters (diversity, inbreeding, and relatedness) similar to the core source of Inagua, which contrasts with the reduced genetic diversity expected due to the small size of the newly founded population. The biometric and body condition results (wing and tarsus length, body mass, and length asymmetry of the tail feathers), together with the breeding success (nest survival and number of fledglings per successful breeding attempt), were also similar in both populations. Overall, these findings suggest that the translocation program has been successful and provide insights on the effectiveness of the actions performed. Our evaluation also delivers future avenues for the conservation planning in other upland forest endangered avian species inhabiting island ecosystems, especially those threatened by the effects of global warming.</p>","PeriodicalId":50786,"journal":{"name":"Animal Conservation","volume":"27 4","pages":"507-521"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2023-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/acv.12927","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138818321","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Why Australian farmers should not kill venomous snakes","authors":"R. Shine,&nbsp;N. Dunstan,&nbsp;J. Abraham,&nbsp;P. Mirtschin","doi":"10.1111/acv.12925","DOIUrl":"10.1111/acv.12925","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Many Australians who work outdoors (notably, farmers and graziers) routinely kill venomous snakes. We argue that this attitude is misguided and dangerous. Despite their fearsome reputation, venomous Australian snakes pose little risk to human health (snakes kill an average of less than three people per year in Australia). Also, snakes confer a substantial benefit by consuming agricultural pests such as rodents. We estimate the magnitude of that benefit with data on snake diets, feeding rates and abundances. The most valuable rodent-controllers are Brownsnakes (genus <i>Pseudonaja</i>), which are rodent-specialists as adults and are abundant in agroecosystems across much of Australia. We calculate that a free-living adult Eastern Brownsnake consumes at least 50 mice per year (probably twice that number), and that population densities of Brownsnakes in agricultural areas can exceed 100 per km². Thus, Brownsnakes remove thousands of mice per square kilometre of farmland per year. That offtake plausibly reduces rodent densities because Brownsnakes take all age classes and both sexes of rodents by hunting in burrows. Tolerating Brownsnakes also would benefit the environment (e.g. less reliance on toxic chemicals) and the health of humans and domestic pets (fewer rodent-mediated diseases) and counter-intuitively, might reduce rates of snakebite (because many bites occur when a snake is attacked). In summary, a societal policy of coexisting with highly venomous snakes would confer multiple benefits to Australian farmers.</p>","PeriodicalId":50786,"journal":{"name":"Animal Conservation","volume":"27 4","pages":"415-425"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2023-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/acv.12925","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138818639","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Bat winter foraging habitat use in working forests: a multispecies spatial occupancy approach","authors":"S. Perea,&nbsp;G. Fandos,&nbsp;A. Larsen-Gray,&nbsp;D. U. Greene,&nbsp;R. Chandler,&nbsp;S. B. Castleberry","doi":"10.1111/acv.12924","DOIUrl":"10.1111/acv.12924","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Insectivorous bats in temperate zones have evolved strategies such as migration or hibernation to overcome challenges of reduced resource availability and increased energy demand during winter. In the southeastern United States Coastal Plain, bats are either year-round residents and remain active during winter or are migrants from colder areas seeking milder temperatures. Southeastern Coastal Plain forests also may represent important areas for remnant populations of species impacted by white-nose syndrome. Working pine (<i>Pinus</i> spp.) forests comprise a large proportion of southeastern Coastal Plain forests, yet winter bat habitat associations and how forest management affects bat use remain understudied. Hence, we used hierarchical multispecies spatial occupancy models to evaluate factors influencing winter bat occupancy and foraging habitat associations in working forests of the southeastern Coastal Plain. From January to March 2020–2022, we deployed Anabat Swift acoustic detectors and measured site- and landscape-level covariates on six working landscapes. We detected five species of bats and three species groups at 93% (224/240) of sites. We observed higher species richness at sites with high proportions of contiguous forest and low levels of basal area. At the species level, occupancy patterns were influenced by site and landscape covariates, which had varying effects on species with distinct foraging strategies. Temperature was an important predictor of detectability. Our findings offer new insights into the ecology of bats in working forest landscapes during winter, where we highlight positive responses in occupancy with contiguous forests and lower levels of basal area, as in previous summer work. By providing valuable information on winter community composition and foraging habitat associations, we hope to guide management decisions for forest attributes important to these species, thus increasing conservation opportunities within working forests.</p>","PeriodicalId":50786,"journal":{"name":"Animal Conservation","volume":"27 4","pages":"478-491"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2023-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/acv.12924","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138818012","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Using citizen science data to assess the vulnerability of bottlenose dolphins to human impacts along England's South Coast","authors":"S. Corr,&nbsp;R. Dudley,&nbsp;T. Brereton,&nbsp;N. Clear,&nbsp;A. Crosby,&nbsp;S. Duncan,&nbsp;P. G. H. Evans,&nbsp;D. Jones,&nbsp;S. Sayer,&nbsp;T. Taylor,&nbsp;N. Tregenza,&nbsp;R. Williams,&nbsp;M. J. Witt,&nbsp;S. N. Ingram","doi":"10.1111/acv.12921","DOIUrl":"10.1111/acv.12921","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Coastal bottlenose dolphin populations are highly vulnerable due to their small population sizes and proximity to human activities. Long-term studies in the UK have monitored populations protected within Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) since the 1990s, but a small community of bottlenose dolphins inhabiting the coastal waters of southern England has received much less attention. The English Channel is one of the most heavily impacted marine ecosystems worldwide and increasing anthropogenic pressures pose a severe threat to the long-term viability of this population. Conservation measures to protect these animals have been hindered by a lack of knowledge of population size, distribution and ranging behaviour. This study aimed to fill these knowledge gaps. A citizen science sighting network yielded 7458 sighting reports of bottlenose dolphins between 2000 and 2020. Resightings of identified individuals were used to estimate abundance, distribution, and ranging behaviour. Social structure analysis revealed a discrete interconnected group of animals in shallow coastal waters, which did not appear to mix with conspecifics identified further offshore. A Bayesian multi-site mark–recapture analysis estimated that this population comprises around 48 animals (CV = 0.18, 95% HPDI = 38–66). These dolphins ranged between North Cornwall and Sussex, with an average individual range of 530 km (68–760 km). Areas of high-modelled habitat suitability were found to overlap with high levels of anthropogenic pressure, with pollution and boat traffic identified as the most pervasive threats. Although adult survival rates indicated that the population was relatively stable from 2008 to 2019 (0.945 (0.017 ± SE)), the small population size implies a significant risk to their long-term viability and resilience to environmental change. By highlighting the most deleterious anthropogenic activities and regions of conservation significance, our results will be useful for developing management policies for threat mitigation and population conservation, to protect this vulnerable group of dolphins.</p>","PeriodicalId":50786,"journal":{"name":"Animal Conservation","volume":"27 4","pages":"461-477"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2023-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/acv.12921","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138515901","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Successful reproduction of female loggerhead sea turtles with severe limb amputations","authors":"A. Marco,&nbsp;A. Sáez,&nbsp;S. Martins,&nbsp;E. Abella-Pérez,&nbsp;L. J. Clarke,&nbsp;J. L. Crespo-Picazo","doi":"10.1111/acv.12922","DOIUrl":"10.1111/acv.12922","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We evaluate the frequency of flipper amputation and its impact on reproduction in the threatened loggerhead turtle (<i>Caretta caretta</i>) population of the Eastern Atlantic, through a long-term study on several high-density nesting beaches of Cabo Verde. 5982 adult females were individually identified, tagged and measured, and the presence of limb amputations was recorded. 918 of them had one or multiple amputations of the rear or front flippers. Most of these turtles (<i>n</i> = 778) had partial rather than complete flipper amputations. However, we found no difference in body condition indices (1.2 vs. 1.1), clutch size (82 vs. 83 eggs), or hatching success (79 vs. 80%) between amputated and non-amputated females. While amputations may cause individual mortality or reduced fitness, our results indicate that some amputated turtles successfully nest and survive across multiple nesting seasons. Moreover, the amputations do not appear to be impacting the strong recovery of this population. This study provides evidence of the successful reproductive capacity of amputated loggerhead sea turtles and, by extension, the potential reproductive success of amputees released from recovery centers.</p>","PeriodicalId":50786,"journal":{"name":"Animal Conservation","volume":"27 3","pages":"386-395"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2023-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/acv.12922","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138515902","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ecological effects of a declining red wolf population","authors":"A. Murray,&nbsp;R. Sutherland,&nbsp;R. Kays","doi":"10.1111/acv.12919","DOIUrl":"10.1111/acv.12919","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Carnivores, especially wolves (<i>Canis</i> sp<i>.</i>), have profound impacts on their ecosystems, affecting the abundance and behavior of prey and competitors, but this has not been examined in detail for red wolves (<i>C. rufus</i>). We studied a population of red wolves that was reintroduced to eastern North Carolina in 1987 and initially thrived, peaking at 120 animals. Due to an increase in anthropogenic mortality and a decline in government support, the population experienced a crash starting in 2014. We evaluated changes in the relative abundance of prey and competitor species during the red wolf decline with 25 camera traps run primarily on National Wildlife Refuges from 2015 to 2021. If red wolves were having an ecological effect on the mammal community, we expected this effect would decline as the wolf population waned, resulting in increased prey and competitor populations. Supporting this, we found that relative abundance increased for most prey and competitor species including American black bear (<i>Ursus americanus</i>), bobcat (<i>Lynx rufus</i>), Virginia opossum (<i>Didelphis virginiana</i>) and Northern raccoon (<i>Procyon lotor</i>). For all species, this increase was most notable after spring 2018, the second year with low red wolf reproduction. For some species, the increase was dramatic; the detection rate for raccoon, bear and bobcat doubled from the spring of 2018 to the spring of 2021. White-tailed deer (<i>Odocoileus virginianus</i>) showed a general increase in relative abundance but remained prevalent even at their lowest detection rates. Our results lend correlational support to the hypothesis that red wolves had a strong effect on their ecosystems by suppressing prey and competitor populations when they were at their peak. This study adds to the growing body of evidence that reintroductions of large predators have ecological impacts, with the caveat that these impacts can decline rapidly if the predators dwindle back to critically low numbers.</p>","PeriodicalId":50786,"journal":{"name":"Animal Conservation","volume":"27 3","pages":"396-407"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2023-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/acv.12919","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138515898","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Long-term conservation efforts at flyway scale can halt the population decline in a globally endangered migratory raptor","authors":"S. Oppel,&nbsp;V. Dobrev,&nbsp;V. Arkumarev,&nbsp;V. Saravia-Mullin,&nbsp;K. Bashmili,&nbsp;T. Bino,&nbsp;A. Bounas,&nbsp;A. Chardin,&nbsp;D. Dobrev,&nbsp;K. Duro,&nbsp;E. Kapsalis,&nbsp;E. Kret,&nbsp;M.-P. Marchant,&nbsp;S. Nakev,&nbsp;N. Petrovski,&nbsp;H. Papaioannou,&nbsp;G. Popgeorgiev,&nbsp;L. Selgjekaj,&nbsp;T. Skartsi,&nbsp;A. Stamenov,&nbsp;S. Stoychev,&nbsp;M. Topi,&nbsp;D. Vavylis,&nbsp;M. Velevski,&nbsp;Z. Vorpsi,&nbsp;J. Weston,&nbsp;E. Xeka,&nbsp;X. Xherri,&nbsp;E. Yordanov,&nbsp;S. C. Nikolov","doi":"10.1111/acv.12917","DOIUrl":"10.1111/acv.12917","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Many threatened species require ongoing management, which is often funded through short project cycles. Evaluating whether the management is effective in protecting a species is important to inform future management investments. For migratory species, management may affect only part of a species' annual cycle, and reversing a population decline is challenging to achieve and demonstrate. Here, we evaluate whether conservation management projects funded by the European LIFE programme to safeguard a migratory vulture population achieved their major objective of stabilizing the target breeding population. Between 2012 and 2022, an international alliance of conservation organizations implemented multiple actions to reduce poisoning, direct persecution, and electrocution and collision with power lines along the Eastern Mediterranean flyway. We monitored breeding territories of the Balkan population of the globally endangered Egyptian Vulture <i>Neophron percnopterus</i> between 2006 and 2022, and tracked 60 young birds with GPS transmitters since 2010. We used these data to examine whether population growth rate and survival probability had increased since project implementation. The mean annual survival probability of adult territorial birds increased by 1.9% since 2014 from 0.937 to 0.955, and the monthly survival probability of wild juvenile birds increased by 9.7% from 0.833 to 0.914 since 2018. The population growth rate across the Balkans increased by 6.9% from 0.939 before 2018 to 1.005 since 2018. This indicates that the Egyptian Vulture population has remained stable for the past 5 years (2018–2022), but at a population size that is only half (105 adult territorial birds in 2022) than at the beginning of the time series (204 in 2006). We caution that ongoing management along the flyway and reinforcement are required to ensure that the Egyptian Vulture population on the Balkans can recover, but we show that flyway-scale collaboration of direct conservation actions can have lasting benefits for migratory species.</p>","PeriodicalId":50786,"journal":{"name":"Animal Conservation","volume":"27 3","pages":"374-385"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2023-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138515922","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Quantifying the effects of Anthropocene activities on Mexican endemic amphibians","authors":"A. Camarena-Hérnandez,&nbsp;L. M. Ochoa-Ochoa,&nbsp;C. Yáñez-Arenas","doi":"10.1111/acv.12918","DOIUrl":"10.1111/acv.12918","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In order to make robust and feasible conservation plans, assessments of species' vulnerability or risk of extinction are ideally needed. However, there are wide differences in the criteria used to assess species vulnerability. Recently, a growing approach seeks to understand the patterns of biodiversity loss using life history traits because these traits show differential responses to environmental disturbances. In order to generate a functional vulnerability assessment for Mexican endemic amphibians, we integrated information from species distribution modeling, functional traits, and spatially explicit threats weighted differentially for each functional group. We obtained 124 distribution models evaluated by species, nine functional groups that represent the differential risk of species against anthropic threats, and 124 layers of spatial vulnerability. We found a generalized presence of threats to amphibians throughout the Mexican territory, highlighting the center of the country as the most affected area, while the southeast and north had a lower level of anthropic activity. We found differential vulnerability values in the distributions of Mexican endemic amphibians. In general, the anthropogenic impact on the distribution of Mexican endemic amphibians is high, and the percentage of habitat loss ranges from 51 to 97%, with an average of 83% lost to anthropogenic pressures. The functional group with the greatest loss of distributional area was found in the salamander genus <i>Ambystoma</i>, while functional groups 2 (frogs with arboreal habits, small size, and reproduction and development in bodies of water) and 4 (small or medium size frogs occupying terrestrial or riparian habitats with oviposition and development occurring in bodies of water or phytotelms) maintain the largest remaining suitable area after considering the threats. We present a replicable methodology that can be implemented anywhere, providing a new tool to generate specific layers that represent threats to functional groups. This allows for updated assessments of species distribution models that can be used in conservation planning, offering more robust data to make conservation planning decisions.</p>","PeriodicalId":50786,"journal":{"name":"Animal Conservation","volume":"27 4","pages":"449-460"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2023-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138515900","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From threatened to threatening: Impacts of a reintroduced predator on reintroduced prey","authors":"B. Stepkovitch,&nbsp;G. Neave,&nbsp;M. A. Jensen,&nbsp;K. Tuft,&nbsp;K. E. Moseby","doi":"10.1111/acv.12920","DOIUrl":"10.1111/acv.12920","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Despite the recent global increase in projects utilizing conservation fencing, reintroductions of predators to fenced conservation reserves are rare. Reintroducing threatened predators into closed ecosystems raises potential issues of overabundance, population viability and inbreeding. In particular, impacts to resident prey species are not well studied across predator reintroductions worldwide, in part due to the difficulties in measuring predator impacts without adequate control areas. Over the 4 years following release, we used multiple lines of evidence and a paired treatment and control area to assess the potential impact of a reintroduced threatened predator, the western quoll, on four reintroduced threatened mammal species in a fenced reserve. Diet analysis, radio-tracking and direct observation suggested that quolls killed and consumed all four reintroduced threatened native prey species, but two of these prey species (bettongs and bandicoots) were preferred prey. Abundance indices of these two prey species declined in parts of the reserve where quolls were present relative to control areas, yet local extinction did not occur. Quoll hunting behaviour suggested that these preferences may be driven, in part, by differences in the detectability and accessibility of similar-sized prey. Dietary selection for threatened prey was reduced at times when native rodents, a highly preferred prey species, were in high abundance. The presence of rodents, coupled with the quoll-exclusion control area and carcass dumps, may have protected reintroduced threatened prey from local extinction. Predator reintroductions to fenced reserves may help maintain ecosystem balance; however, predators may be incompatible with conservation of some threatened prey species unless alternative common prey are present or intensive management actions are implemented.</p>","PeriodicalId":50786,"journal":{"name":"Animal Conservation","volume":"28 1","pages":"5-18"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2023-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/acv.12920","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134954138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}