planning is essential for zoos and aquariums globally. As organizations whose primary source of income may be from visitors, zoological collections may be tempted to select large, charismatic mammal species to maintain visitor interest. Zoos and aquariums aim to breed sustainable populations of species, many of which are not mammals. While zoo advertising and marketing often showcases megafauna, there is little research on the current composition of zoo collection plans or their evolution. To investigate zoo collection planning from a global perspective, we analysed the taxonomic composition of collections in the International Zoo Yearbook's list of 'Zoos and Aquariums of the World' from 1960 until 2018. Average proportions of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and invertebrates were calculated for each collection per year. Analysis revealed that in terms of species prevalence, birds were best represented, making up 31Á37% of the average collection. Amphibians, by contrast, made up only 2Á78% of the average zoo species. Temporal analysis revealed a significant decrease in the proportion of bird species housed in collections (P < 0Á001), while a significant increase was observed for fish (P = 0Á001) and invertebrates (P < 0Á001). Additionally, the average number of species housed in each collection has decreased by almost a third, from 329 spp in 1960 to 225 spp in 2018. This study suggests that zoos have reduced the diversity of animals that they keep, possibly in pursuit of sustainable populations of fewer species. However, zoos and aquariums should reflect on the implications of the poor representation of the amphibian taxa.

Globally, zoological collections may host public events after usual opening hours including festivals, special tours and evening events, in order to generate income. During the summer of 2014, The Zoological Society of London held a series of nine evening events during which zoos' opening hours were extended, with entertainment offerings such as tours and visitor events provided.This study investigated the effect of evening events on the behaviour and enclosure use of five Sumatran tigers (Panthera tigris sumatrae) at ZSL London Zoo. Instantaneous focal sampling was utilised to collect behavioural data and enclosure zone occupancy.Measures of visitor density, crowd noise volume and flash photography data were collected to identify their effect on behaviour and enclosure use. Overall, there was a significant decrease in feeding, locomotion and playing, and a significant increase in resting during event evenings. The event behaviours stretching, spraying, rubbing, flehmen and glass banging also occurred significantly more often during events than on control evenings. There was a significant difference in enclosure use between evening event and control nights, with tigers using distant zones more frequently during events. These data suggest that overall, event nights could influence the behaviour of zoo-housed tigers. In addition to altering their behaviour, tigers appear to exercise choice in space use to reduce the impact of visitor presence during evenings. Future studies should explore these potential impacts across a wider range of felids and investigate the effects of the different stimuli produced by visitors. This information can therefore be used to inform planning of effective mitigation strategies.

Abstract. Brereton JE, Brereton SR. 2021. Short Communication: Examining taxa representation in Asian zoos and aquaria using historic records. Biodiversitas 22: 2870-2875. According to the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA), modern zoological collections should engage in conservation and education-based activities: to do this, the collections must house animals that are interesting to their visitors. There is a plethora of evidence to suggest that zoo visitors and the wider public are more interested in mammals than any other taxa. This ‘mammal bias’ is known to extend into facets of science, such as in reintroduction and zoo research literature. Previous studies on zoo collection planning, however, have identified that globally, zoological collections actually contain more species of bird and fish on average than mammals. At current, there is limited information on the composition of Asian zoological collections. Data on the number of species per taxa (amphibians, birds, fish, invertebrates, mammals, and reptiles) housed at each zoo globally was collected from the International Zoo Yearbook’s ‘Zoos and Aquariums of the World’ from 1960 until 2018. Additional data including the visitor attendance age and size of the collection was recorded. The composition of Asian zoo collection plans was compared against zoos globally, and a longitudinal investigation of Asian Zoo composition was also conducted. Additionally, Poisson regressions were run to determine whether the proportional representation of taxa, year, or visitor attendance were predictors of the numbers of animal species at the collection. Overall, the number of species per taxa significantly differed between Asian collections and the global averages, with Asian collections generally containing greater numbers of invertebrates and fish, and comparatively fewer reptiles. There were similarities in the number of species per taxa over time between Asian collections and zoological collections globally. This study suggests that the influences that affect the species housed in zoos and aquariums more globally are also influencing those in Asian countries.

There is evidence to suggest that visitors to zoological collections prefer to see large, active mammals. To attract visitors, zoos and aquariums might be tempted to select for mammal species in their collection plans to maintain visitor interest. However, collections also play a role in endangered species breeding, many of which are not mammals. Using International Zoo Yearbook data, we explored the number of species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and invertebrates housed in collections across the globe. These data were compared against three hypothetical collection plan strategies: a) marketing, as shown by the prevalence of each taxon in toy retail; b) biodiversity, in which taxa in proportions that reflect their wild abundance, and c) in which all six taxa are represented equally. The global zoological collection plan indicated that on average, collections contain more bird species than other taxonomic groups, followed by fish, mammals, invertebrates, reptiles and amphibians.