Urban land development for biodiversity: suggested development and management guidelines for eco-estates using case studies from coastal KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Alexander, Jarryd; Smith, David A. Ehlers; Smith, Yvette C. Ehlers; Downs, Colleen T.

doi:10.1016/j.ufug.2021.127347

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 91 publications

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“…For a long time, the one-sided pursuit of economic growth in urban development, the extensive development mode of urban construction land expansion and the one-way unbalanced flow of urban and rural factors have greatly squeezed the production space of agriculture [ 1 ]. At the same time, frequent global warming, El Niño and other extreme climate changes have caused global temperature and precipitation imbalance [ 2 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agricultural Production Space Suitability in China: Spatial Pattern, Influencing Factors and Optimization Strategies

Pan

Lin

Yang

2022

IJERPH

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The paper uses the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), spatial autocorrelation analysis, and geographic detectors to reveal the spatial pattern of agricultural production space suitability in China, explores the impact mechanism of agricultural production development, and explores the optimization and promotion strategies for the development of regional agricultural production in various regions in the future. The results show that the resource and environmental carrying capacity, and the agricultural production space suitability under the direction of China’s agricultural production function, show a ‘polarization’ development trend in space, with high levels in the southeast and low levels in the northwest, with significant spatial agglomeration. The factors influencing the suitability of agricultural production have significant spatial differentiation laws in the Nine Agricultural Areas of China. Climate change factors are the dominant factors affecting the areas with poor resource endowment and traditional agricultural areas in the northwest. Factors that reflect the level of urbanization are the main factors that affect the agricultural production space suitability in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and South China. China’s agricultural production spatial suitability areas can be divided into nine types of suitable geographical areas. In the future, the impacts of climate change and urbanization on agricultural production space should be considered, and strategies should be taken, according to local conditions, in different regions to improve their suitability.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agricultural Production Space Suitability in China: Spatial Pattern, Influencing Factors and Optimization Strategies

Pan

Lin

Yang

2022

IJERPH

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Using social networks to explore the social flexibility of urban vervet monkeys

Thatcher,

Downs,

Koyama

2024

Urban Ecosyst

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Increasing urbanisation reduces available habitat and increases human-wildlife interactions, presenting social and ecological challenges for many species; however, flexible generalist species, such as the vervet monkey, Chlorocebus pygerythrus, thrive under these pressures. In the urban mosaic, human-food sources represent clumped, monopolisable food that can increase contest competition. Social network analysis (SNA) is a powerful tool to monitor changes in social structure, yet it has rarely been used to study urban wildlife. Using SNA, we investigated the effect of anthropogenic food and human-wildlife interactions on social cohesion in five vervet monkey groups in urban KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Over six months, we conducted group scan samples every 30-min on each group and recorded all humans-vervet monkey interactions during dawn to dusk follows. We analysed the effect of foraging on natural and human-related food sources and human-vervet monkey interactions on social network metrics for grooming and aggression at group (density, clustering coefficient and distance) and individual (eigenvector centrality and degree) levels, using linear mixed models. Anthropogenic food influenced almost all social metrics. At the group level, foraging on anthropogenic food was related to increased density and cohesion in both grooming and aggression networks. At the individual level, increasing anthropogenic food affected high-ranking monkeys most: eigenvector centrality and outdegree in aggression networks increased with rank. Social network analysis can be a useful tool to document urban effects on wildlife groups, and aids our understanding of wildlife behavioural flexibility, a key tool in developing educated and effective management strategies.

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Trends in vervet monkey admissions to a wildlife rehabilitation centre: a reflection of human-wildlife conflict in an urban-forest mosaic landscape

Pillay,

Streicher,

Downs

2024

Mamm Biol

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Despite the common destructive effects of urbanisation on biodiversity assemblages, certain species thrive in urban environments. One mammalian species that has persisted in the urban-forest mosaic landscape is the vervet monkey (Chlorocebus pygerythrus). It is a common resident primate in Durban, eThekwini Municipality, KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa, with frequent contact with humans and domestic wildlife. Due to their adaptability in using human-altered landscapes, the interactions between humans and vervet monkeys have increased and are often negative. Our study determined trends in the admission cases of vervet monkeys to a Durban wildlife rehabilitation centre and assessed the main factors contributing to these admissions to mitigate human-vervet monkey conflict. Our analyses were conducted on recorded admission data for vervet monkeys at a wildlife rehabilitation centre from 2011 to 2018. Members of the public (90.0%) mostly reported vervet cases, with admissions mostly recorded from the central district (46.8%) of the municipality. The number of admitted vervet monkeys increased significantly over the years and months, with a mean (± SE) of 127.3 ± 21.34 and 84.8 ± 5.37, respectively. Only 34.3% of vervet monkeys were alive at the end of the admission process from the 83.7% that were admitted alive at the rehabilitation centre. The high number of deaths resulted from anthropogenic activities, primarily motor vehicle strikes (30.8%) and domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris) attacks (13.9%). We modelled survivability for vervet monkeys, and our results showed that season, age category, and the cause of admission were all significant factors influencing survival after admission. The sex of vervet monkeys had no significant effects on survivability after admission to the rehabilitation centre. We suggest that wildlife rehabilitation centres in priority areas use these findings in education to improve human coexistence with vervet monkeys. The trends also serve as a foundation for human-vervet conflict resolution programmes. The advantages of publishing records from rehabilitation centres are that they will raise awareness of the challenges posed by vervet monkeys in urban environments, where they are sometimes perceived as a nuisance because of anthropogenic influences in the urban mosaic landscape.

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Urban land development for biodiversity: suggested development and management guidelines for eco-estates using case studies from coastal KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Cited by 5 publications

References 91 publications

Agricultural Production Space Suitability in China: Spatial Pattern, Influencing Factors and Optimization Strategies

Agricultural Production Space Suitability in China: Spatial Pattern, Influencing Factors and Optimization Strategies

Using social networks to explore the social flexibility of urban vervet monkeys

Trends in vervet monkey admissions to a wildlife rehabilitation centre: a reflection of human-wildlife conflict in an urban-forest mosaic landscape

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