CES Updates

Anthropogenic impacts at the interface of animal spatial and social behaviour

Publications /

From the abstract: “Here, we review studies of animal behaviour at the spatial–social interface to understand and predict how human disturbance affects animal movement, distribution and intraspecific interactions, with consequences for the conservation of populations and ecosystems. By understanding the spatial–social mechanisms linking human disturbance to conservation outcomes, we can better design management interventions to mitigate undesired consequences of disturbance.” […]

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Scale at the interface of spatial and social ecology

Publications /

From the abstract: “We propose three key innovations that incrementally build upon each other […] These conceptual innovations cast our understanding of the relationships between social and spatial dimensions of animal ecology in a new light, allowing a more holistic understanding and clearer hypothesis development for animal behaviour.” Authors: Simona Picardi, Briana L. Abrahms and Jerod A. MerkleJournal: Philosophical Transactions

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World African Wild Dog Day

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Happy World African Wild Dog Day! While most people know the Center for Ecosystem Sentinels for our work on penguins, we also research African Wild Dogs. In fact, Dr. Kasim Rafiq and graduate students Leigh West and Marie-Pier Poulin are just returning from Botswana right now! As usual, they worked alongside our collaborators from Botswana Predator Conservation over the summer.

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Global expansion of human-wildlife overlap in the 21st century

Publications /

“We show that the potential spatial overlap of global human populations and 22,374 terrestrial vertebrate species will increase across ~56.6% and decrease across only ~11.8% of the Earth’s terrestrial surface by 2070 […] The strong spatial heterogeneity of future human-wildlife overlap found in our study makes it clear that local context is imperative to consider, and more targeted area-based land-use

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Increasing environmental variability inhibits evolutionary rescue in a long-lived vertebrate

Publications /

“Using a multidecadal dataset on Magellanic penguins, we show that despite strong selection on body size, some environmental conditions favored larger bodies, and others favored smaller bodies, thus preventing consistent evolution in one direction or the other […] Such findings highlight that fluctuating selection can be driven by environmental variability, and these processes could eliminate the possibility of evolutionary rescue

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PENGUINS: Natural History and Conservation

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Published over 10 years ago, Penguins: Natural History and Conservation is still considered the publication about penguins. UW PressBookshop.comAmazon.com Penguins, among the most delightful creatures in the world, are also among the most vulnerable. The fragile status of most penguin populations today mirrors the troubled condition of the southern oceans, as well as larger marine conservation problems: climate change, pollution,

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World Seabird Day 2024

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As you might’ve guessed – we like our seabirds here. Check out all the ways we celebrate seabirds at the Center for Ecosystem Sentinels: Student YouTube Videos We bring to you a new video: Taken from the Skies, by Samanth-Lynn Martinez. This video does not mince words about the damage we are doing to our seabird populations. Share this call

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Long-distance communication can enable collective migration in a dynamic seascape

Publications /

“Social information is predicted to enhance the quality of animals’ migratory decisions in dynamic ecosystems, but the relative benefits of social information in the long-range movements of marine megafauna are unknown. In particular, whether and how migrants use nonlocal information gained through social communication at the large spatial scale of oceanic ecosystems remains unclear. […]” Authors: Stephanie Dodson, William K.

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Spatial match-mismatch between predators and prey under climate change

Publications /

Authors: Gemma Carroll, Briana Abrahms, Stephanie Brodie & Megan A. Cimino Journal: Nature Ecology and Evolution DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02454-0 “Climate change is driving a rapid redistribution of life on Earth. Variability in the rates, magnitudes and directions of species’ shifts can alter spatial overlap between predators and prey, with the potential to decouple trophic interactions. Although phenological mismatches between predator requirements

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Ecosystem Sentinels as Early-Warning Indicators in the Anthropocene

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Authors: Elliott L. Hazen, Matthew S. Savoca T.J. Clark-Wolf, Max Czapanskiy, Peter M. Rabinowitz, and Briana AbrahmsJournal: Annual Review of Environment and ResourcesDOI: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-111522-102317 “Sentinel species, from birds to invertebrates, have been used to provide insights into ecosystem function, as leading indicators of risk to human health and as harbingers of future change, with implications for ecosystem structure and function.

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