Integrating research using animal-borne telemetry with the needs of conservation management

McGowan, Jennifer; Beger, Maria; Lewison, Rebecca L.; Harcourt, Robert; Campbell, Hamish A.; Priest, Mark A.; Dwyer, Ross G.; Lin, Hsien Yung; Lentini, Pia E.; Dudgeon, Christine L.; McMahon, Clive R.; Watts, Matthew; Possingham, Hugh P.

doi:10.1111/1365-2664.12755

Cited by 117 publications

(114 citation statements)

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“…; McGowan et al. ). We extracted a single shark from our sample of 40 tagged sharks and ran Marxan (100 runs; 1,000,000 iterations per run) with a 50% river‐use target for each tagged shark.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Using individual‐based movement information to identify spatial conservation priorities for mobile species

Dwyer

Campbell

Pillans

et al. 2019

Conservation Biology

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The optimal design of reserve networks and fisheries closures depends on species occurrence information and knowledge of how anthropogenic impacts interact with the species concerned. However, challenges in surveying mobile and cryptic species over adequate spatial and temporal scales can mask the importance of particular habitats, leading to uncertainty about which areas to protect to optimize conservation efforts. We investigated how telemetry‐derived locations can help guide the scale and timing of fisheries closures with the aim of reducing threatened species bycatch. Forty juvenile speartooth sharks (Glyphis glyphis) were monitored over 22 months with implanted acoustic transmitters and an array of hydrophone receivers. Using the decision‐support tool Marxan, we formulated a permanent fisheries closure that prioritized areas used more frequently by tagged sharks and considered areas perceived as having high value to fisheries. To explore how the size of the permanent closure compared with an alternative set of time‐area closures (i.e., where different areas were closed to fishing at different times of year), we used a cluster analysis to group months that had similar arrangements of selected planning units (informed by shark movements during that month) into 2 time‐area closures. Sharks were consistent in their timing and direction of migratory movements, but the number of tagged sharks made a big difference in the placement of the permanent closure; 30 individuals were needed to capture behavioral heterogeneity. The dry‐season (May–January) and wet‐season (February–April) time‐area closures opened 20% and 25% more planning units to fishing, respectively, compared with the permanent closure with boundaries fixed in space and time. Our results show that telemetry has the potential to inform and improve spatial management of mobile species and that the temporal component of tracking data can be incorporated into prioritizations to reduce possible impacts of spatial closures on established fisheries.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is due to uncertainty in how to integrate telemetry data sets within a conservation planning framework (Allen & Singh ; McGowan et al. ) and whether population‐level inferences are valid when only a few individuals are tracked for a limited period (Campbell et al. ; Mazor et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using individual‐based movement information to identify spatial conservation priorities for mobile species

Dwyer

Campbell

Pillans

et al. 2019

Conservation Biology

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“…While we encourage improving the conservation return on investment from global seabird tracking (McGowan et al . ), protecting large pelagic IBAs is probably not politically or socially feasible. Such IBAs may be best used to inform broad policy not MPAs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Evaluation of Marine Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas in the Context of Spatial Conservation Prioritization

McGowan

Smith

Marco

et al. 2017

CONSERVATION LETTERS

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Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs) are sites identified as globally important for bird species conservation. Marine IBAs are one of the few comprehensive multi-species datasets available for the marine environment, and their use in conservation planning will likely increase as countries race to protect 10% of their territorial waters by 2020. We tested 15 planning scenarios for Australia's Exclusive Economic Zone to guide best practice on integrating marine IBAs into spatial conservation prioritization. We found prioritizations based solely on habitat protection failed to protect IBAs, and prioritizations based solely on IBAs similarly failed to meet basic levels of habitat representation. Further, treating all marine IBAs as irreplaceable sites produced the most inefficient plans in terms of ecological representativeness and protection equality. Our analyses suggest that marine spatial planners who wish to use IBAs treat them like any other conservation feature by assigning them a specific protection target.

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“…Real-time information about water temperature and rate of flow in the Fraser River, Canada, is currently being used to make within-season management decisions, and there is keen interest in relating these environmental drivers to the movement rates and reach-specific survival of fishes using similar tag-detection nodes [13]. Some have argued that telemetry is not relevant to conservation [14]. The approach described here alleviates this concern, providing specific examples where biotelemetric data have been used to make important management decisions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Real-time nodes permit adaptive management of endangered species of fishes

et al. 2017

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Background: Currently acoustic tag-detecting autonomous receivers must be visited periodically to download the files of tag detections. Hence, the information about the whereabouts of tagged fishes is not available to make prompt regulatory decisions to reduce entrainment. In contrast, real-time receivers can detect the signal from a transmitter on a passing fish and immediately transmit its identity and time of detection to a website, where they can be viewed on either a computer or cellular telephone. Real-time nodes can aid regulatory biologists in making important decisions. This is a powerful new tool for resource managers and conservation biologists. Results:We describe a network of real-time, fish-tracking nodes on the Sacramento River, California. Two case studies illustrate the value of the nodes. The first entails detecting the arrival of migrating winter-run Chinook salmon near a water diversion and alerting regulatory biologists to keep the diversion closed to increase the migratory success. The second study involves the detection of green sturgeon at potential stranding sites, alerting biologists of the need to transport them from that site to the main channel of the river so they can continue their upstream migration to their spawning sites.

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Integrating research using animal-borne telemetry with the needs of conservation management

Abstract: (2017), Integrating research using animal-borne telemetry with the needs of conservation management. J Appl Ecol, 54: 423-429., which has been published in final form at https://doi

Cited by 117 publications

References 40 publications

Using individual‐based movement information to identify spatial conservation priorities for mobile species

Using individual‐based movement information to identify spatial conservation priorities for mobile species

An Evaluation of Marine Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas in the Context of Spatial Conservation Prioritization

Real-time nodes permit adaptive management of endangered species of fishes

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