Reintroduction programs for threatened species often include elaborate release strategies designed to improve success, but their advantages are rarely tested scientifically. We used a set of four experiments to demonstrate that the influence of release strategies on short-term reintroduction outcomes is related to both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. We compared different reintroduction strategies for three mammal species in an arid environment where exotic mammalian predators were removed. Wild greater stick-nest rats selected vegetation shelter sites with greater structural density than captive-bred rats, travelled further from the release site and experienced lower rates of mortality. In comparison, there was no difference in mortality or movement between wild and captive-bred greater bilbies. Burrowing bettongs and greater bilbies were also subjected to immediate and delayed release strategies and whilst no difference was detected in bilbies, bettongs that were subjected to delayed releases lost less weight and took less time to establish burrows than those that were immediately released. Interspecific differences in treatment response were attributed to predation risk, the nature of the release site, and behavioural traits such as shelter investment and sociality. Our varied results highlight the inadequacies of review articles focusing on optimum release protocols due to their attempt to generalise across species and release sites. We provide an example of a predictive model to guide future release strategy experimentation that recognises the range of intrinsic and extrinsic factors influencing reintroduction outcomes. We encourage researchers to treat programs experimentally, identify individual site and species characters that may influence release strategies and record data on movements, mortality, weight dynamics, and settling times and distances. The inherent issues of small sample size and low statistical power that plague most reintroduction experiments suggests there is also a need for increased standardisation and publication of data sets to enable appropriate meta-analyses to occur.

Inadequate information on the geographical distribution of biodiversity hampers decision-making for conservation. Major efforts are underway to fill knowledge gaps, but there are increasing concerns that publishing the locations of species is dangerous, particularly for species at risk of exploitation. While we recognize that well-informed control of location data for highly sensitive taxa is necessary to avoid risks, such as poaching or habitat disturbance by recreational visitors, we argue that ignoring the benefits of sharing biodiversity data could unnecessarily obstruct conservation efforts for species and locations with low risks of exploitation. We provide a decision tree protocol for scientists that systematically considers both the risks of exploitation and potential benefits of increased conservation activities. Our protocol helps scientists assess the impacts of publishing biodiversity data and aims to enhance conservation opportunities, promote community engagement and reduce duplication of survey efforts.

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Aims Sea-level rise is one of the most certain consequences of global warming and is predicted to exert significant adverse effects on wildlife in coastal habitats worldwide. Terrestrial fauna inhabiting low-lying islands are likely to suffer the greatest loss to habitat from sea-level rise and other oceanographic impacts stemming from anthropogenic climate change. Bramble Cay (Maizab Kaur), an ~4ha, low elevation sand cay located in Torres Strait, Australia, supports the only known population of the endangered Bramble Cay melomys Melomys rubicola Thomas, 1924. As a result of a decline in this population noted during previous monitoring to 2004, habitat loss due to erosion of the cay and direct mortality from storm surges were implicated as major threats to this species. This study aimed to confirm the current conservation status of the species, to seek information about the key factor or factors responsible for the population decline and to recover any remaining individuals for a captive insurance population. Methods During three survey periods (December 2011, March 2014 and August–September 2014), a total of 1170 small mammal trap-nights, 60 camera trap-nights, 5h of nocturnal searches and 5h of diurnal searches were undertaken on Bramble Cay. Key results All three survey periods failed to detect any Bramble Cay melomys. The island had experienced a recent, severe reduction in vegetation, which is the primary food resource for the Bramble Cay melomys. Herbaceous cover on the cay decreased from 2.16ha in 2004 to 0.065ha in March 2014 before recovering somewhat to 0.19ha in August–September 2014. Conclusions These results demonstrate that this rodent species has now been extirpated on Bramble Cay. The vegetation decline was probably due to ocean inundation resulting from an increased frequency and intensity of weather events producing extreme high water levels and storm surges, in turn caused by anthropogenic climate change. Implications The loss of the Bramble Cay melomys from Bramble Cay probably represents the first documented mammalian extinction due to human-induced climate change. This event highlights the immediate need to mitigate predicted impacts of sea-level rise and ocean inundation on other vulnerable species occurring on low lying islands and in susceptible coastal zones through captive breeding and reintroduction or other targeted measures.

Aim: Comprehensive, global information on species’ occurrences is an essential biodiversity variable and central to a range of applications in ecology, evolution, biogeography and conservation. Expert range maps often represent a species’ only available distributional information and play an increasing role in conservation assessments and macroecology. We provide global range maps for the native ranges of all extant mammal species harmonised to the taxonomy of the Mammal Diversity Database (MDD) mobilised from two sources, the Handbook of the Mammals of the World (HMW) and the Illustrated Checklist of the Mammals of the World (CMW). Location: Global. Taxon: All extant mammal species. Methods: Range maps were digitally interpreted, georeferenced, error-checked and subsequently taxonomically aligned between the HMW (6253 species), the CMW (6431 species) and the MDD taxonomies (6362 species). Results: Range maps can be evaluated and visualised in an online map browser at Map of Life ( mol.org ) and accessed for individual or batch download for non-commercial use. Main conclusion: Expert maps of species’ global distributions are limited in their spatial detail and temporal specificity, but form a useful basis for broad-scale characterizations and model-based integration with other data. We provide georeferenced range maps for the native ranges of all extant mammal species as shapefiles, with species-level metadata and source information packaged together in geodatabase format. Across the three taxonomic sources our maps entail, there are 1784 taxonomic name differences compared to the maps currently available on the IUCN Red List website. The expert maps provided here are harmonised to the MDD taxonomic authority and linked to a community of online tools that will enable transparent future updates and version control.