Falk's Conservation Opinion Blog

Most migratory birds of the world's flyways are in decline, or in conservation troubles by now. The Old World flyway connecting Western Europe with Africa is no exception and hardly a surprise, while Africa features a tragic colonial legacy serving primarily the 'Global North' and a small group of wealthy or royal actors while the vast majority of people in Africa etc are ignored.

Further, this Afro‐Palaearctic flyway is unique in the fact that it features deep science, done for over 100 years, by elite universities, institutions and NGOs. Still, bird numbers in UK, Germany, France, Spain, and Africa overall are in decline already for easily over a decade. It's a crisis of science-based conservation, as practiced by 'The West', in Europe and by Africa and its NGOs and governance.

Here I assess a flyway conservation review by Vickery et al (2023) in the context of science bias, reality context, poverty and some ecological economics perspectives for conservation effectiveness. Reference is made to our own work, e.g. Walther and Huettmann (2021) and Chernetsov and Huettmann (2005), as well as to modern conservation practices, development aid and a future outlook involving climate change, modern methods as well as conflicts and warfare centered around resource extraction at avian conservation hotspots in Africa and the flyway.

Selection of References used (in order of citation)

Vickery, J. A., Mallord, J. W., Adams, W. M., Beresford, A. E., Both, C., Cresswell, W., ... & Hewson, C. M. (2023). The conservation of Afro‐Palaearctic migrants: What we are learning and what we need to know?. Ibis. https://doi.org/10.1111/ibi.13171

Walther, B. A., & Huettmann, F. (2021). Palearctic passerine migrant declines in African wintering grounds in the Anthropocene (1970–1990 and near future): A conservation assessment using publicly available GIS predictors and machine learning. Science of The Total Environment, 777, 146093.

Chernetsov, N., & Huettmann, F. (2005). Linking global climate grid surfaces with local long-term migration monitoring data: spatial computations for the Pied Flycatcher to assess climate-related population dynamics on a continental scale. In

Marcacci, G., Briedis, M., Diop, N., Diallo, A. Y., Kebede, F., & Jacot, A. (2023). A roadmap integrating

Urban gulls are a fascinating issue in recent times. Most people in the world now live in cities, where they are confronted with urban governance and its wildlife, such as cockroaches, squirrels, rats, pigeons and gulls, let's say. In the subarctic this issue is widely unstudied but matters equally while most people in the world do live in cities: The Anthropocene.

Here I present on a recent study by us on gulls using urban habitat surveys, 'Big Data', GIS, machine learning and its inference (Huettmann et al. 2023). I present that short-billed gulls swap in summer an ecological niche space with ravens, driven by human factors like industrialization, rivers and gravel pits and food subsidies whereas 'natural forests' now get overruled.

This work has implications how urban spaces are to be managed due to gulls being known as major disease reservoirs and perceived pests. Thus far, this scheme is poorly addressed while an effective and sustainable municipal management does rule in the absence, with amateur bird watchers and contractors often dominating. An effective urban wildlife management is certainly lacking for most arctic and polar regions where pandemics currently affect such avian populations and subsequently can result into massive population crashes.

References (Selection)

Baltensperger, A. P., Mullet, T. C., Schmid, M. S., Humphries, G. R. W., Kövér, L., & Huettmann, F. (2013). Seasonal observations and machine-learning-based spatial model predictions for the common raven (Corvus corax) in the urban, sub-arctic environment of Fairbanks, Alaska. Polar Biology, 36, 1587-1599.

Benmazouz, I., Jokimäki, J., Juhasz, L., Kaisanlahti-Jokimäki, M. L., Paladi, P., Kardos, G., ... & Kövér, L. (2023). Morphological changes in hooded crows (Corvus cornix) related to urbanization. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 11(1196075).

Forman, R. T. (2014). Urban ecology: science of cities. Cambridge University Press.

Hansen, L., & Huettmann, F. (2020). Swallows and Sparrows in the Human Street-Market Interface of Urban Nepal: Towards a First Open Access GIS Data and Model Inference on the Role of Religion and Culture in Bird Distribution. Hindu Kush-Himalaya watersheds downhill: Landscape ecology and conservation perspectives, 361-399.

Huettmann, F., Kövér, L., Robold, R., Spangler, M., & Steiner, M. (2023). Model-based prediction of a vacant summer niche in a subarctic urbanscape: A multi-year open access data analysis of a ‘niche swap’ by short-billed Gulls. Ecological Informatics, 102364.

Kövér, L., Gyüre, P., Balogh, P., Huettmann, F., Lengyel, S., & Juhász, L. (2015). Recent colonization and nest site selection of the Hooded Crow (Corvus corone cornix L.) in an urban environment. Landscape and Urban Planning, 133, 78-86.

When snow gets warmed up it melts; virtually every child will know that. 

However, on a policy and public level, those details are hardly acknowledged, certainly not the vast impacts that relate to lacking 'snow pack', e.g. seasonality, regional climate, and feeding water tables, rivers, estuaries and thus directly contributing to farming, global food security and warfare even - to name just a few.

Here I share my first-hand experiences across years from observing snow and ice in winter for areas like Hindu Kush-Himalaya, Antarctica and Alaska, the mountains and ice sheet landscapes. Those 'coldspots' are traditionally known for major ice and snow - cooling areas - of the world as indicators of the global temperature.

In this podcast I outline how this crucial subject for humanity -driven by man-made CO2 and Greenhouse Gas (GHGs) - received too little attention but hopefully can get addressed better now for future generations.

(Photo credit: Author, Murphy Dome (interior Alaska) area showing a mountain top with a very thin snow layer in January)

Additional references

Ingels J., R. Aronson, C. Smith, A. Baco, H. Bik, J. Blake, A. Brandt,M .Cape, D. DeMaster, E. Dolan, E. Domack, S. FireH, H Geisz, M. Gigliotti, H. Griffiths, K. Halanych,C. Havermans, F. Huettmann, S.Ishman, S. Kranz,A. Leventer, A. Mahon,J. McClintock,M. McCormick, B.Mitchell, A. Murray, L. Peck, A. Rogers, B. Shoplock, K. Smith, B. Steffel, M. Stukel, A. Sweetman, M. Taylor,A. Thurber, M. Truffer, A. Van de Putte, A. Vanreusel, M. Zamora-Duran (2020). Antarctic Ecosystem Responses following Ice Shelf Collapse and Iceberg Calving: Science Review and Future Research. WIREs Clim Change. 2020;e682. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.682 (see also previous podcast in this series by FH)

Regmi G.R. and F. Huettmann (2020) Hindu Kush-Himalaya Watersheds Downhill: Landscape Ecology and Conservation Perspectives. Springer Gland, Switzerland . 886 pages

The Guardian (2023a) Alpine ski resorts struggle amid snow shortage – in pictures. 6th January 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/travel/gallery/2023/jan/06/alpine-ski-resorts-snow-shortage-in-pictures (accessed 25th January 2023)

The Guardian (2023b) In stark contrast: the warming of Europe's ski resorts - photo essay. January 26th 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/26/warming-europe-ski-resorts-photo-essay-satellite-images-winter-lack-of-snow (accessed 26th January 2023)

New Zealand (NZ) is blessed with a unique, quite wild nature and its endemic biodiversity. Also, NZ as a relatively small nation with c. 5.1 mio inhabitants features the world's 4th largest exclusive economic zone (EEZ). But modern NZ also entails many governance problems. Indigenous concepts are becoming now more dominant in NZ, and commercial fisheries there have a governance stronghold. Many of the fisheries products are actually for export, e.g. U.S., Asia and the EU/UK.

Like found in many fisheries nations, e.g. Japan, Norway and Iceland, the set up of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) get widely opposed and marine protected areas make just for s very tiny fraction of the EEZ and its conservation.

This podcast elaborates on an article by journalist Andrea Vance (2022) presenting an overview of the MPA process in NZ and specifically for the southeastern coastline -the South East Marine Protection (SEMP) network process initiated already in 2013 - featuring great ecosystems and conservation species like yellow-eyed penguins, royal albatross, dolphins, sea lions and rock lobsters.

Reference

Vance A (2022) A decade of wrangling, but dolphins and seabirds off the South Island's east coast remain unprotected.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/130147040/a-decade-of-wrangling-but-dolphins-and-seabirds-off-the-south-islands-east-coast-remain-unprotected.

05:00, Oct 29 2022. Stuff, New Zealand

Some environmental patterns appear to be local - but upon closer inspection - then have a wider and larger spill-over and are actually driven by global actors. Based on a recent study by Veit et al. (2021) here a seabird example is presented - the Elegant Tern - and how its conservation management effects spill into the wider Pacific and the Atlantic, including western Europe (Spain and France). It turned global. Most individuals of this tern species breed on just one tiny island in southern California - Isla Raza. However, individual bird vagrants of Elegant Terns are found by bird watchers and researchers in areas far away from this source but directly affected by rodent/predator-removal and other factors - most of them man-made and cultural.

The concept of telecoupling (=widely connected sources, sinks and spill-overs) can be applied here and it helps in the Anthropocene to understand how global economies, their cultures/attitudes and actions all affect oceans, species, prey and climate alike - including some of the associated El Nino patterns.  

References (selection)

Liu J., Y. Dou, M. Batistella, E.Challies, T.Conno, C.Friis, J.DA. Millington, E. Parish, C. L Romulo, R.F.Bicudo Silva, H. Triezenberg, H.Yang, Z.Zhao, K. S. Zimmerer, F. Huettmann, M.L. Treglia, Z. Basher, M.G. Chung, A.Herzberger, A.Lenschow, A. Mechiche-Alami, J. Newig, J.Roch  and J. Sun (2018) Spillover systems in a telecoupled Anthropocene: typology, methods, and governance for global sustainability. Environmental Sustainability 33:58-69 doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2018.04.009

Raya Rey A. and F. Huettmann (2019) Telecoupling analysis of the Patagonian Shelf: a new approach to study global seabird-fisheries interactions to achieve sustainability. Journal for Nature Conservation 3: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ article/pii/S1617138118301067

Raya Rey, A. N., J. C. Pizarro, C. B. Anderson, and F. Huettmann. (2017) Even at the uttermost ends of the Earth: how seabirds telecouple the Beagle Channel with regional and global processes that affect environmental conservation and social-ecological sustainability. Ecology and Society 22 (4):31. [online] URL: https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol22/iss4/art31/

Veit, R. R., E. Velarde, M.H. Horn, and L.L. Manne (2021) Population growth and long-distance vagrancy leads to colonization of Europe by elegant terns Thalasseus elegans. Front. Ecol. Evol, 9: 824.

“My dream is to live off-grid”. A sentence that seems to come up more and more frequently throughout the last few years. Who does not want to live sustainably and be self-subsistent ? Yet, how is it really to live off-grid in remote areas, away from modern society, but yet to stay in western countries ? This is what we are discussing with our special guest Moriz Steiner in this episode. Moriz lived in his early teens in remote off-grid mountain huts, looking after cattle, and also discovering nature and himself. We touch upon topics such as the reason for living such off-grid lifestyles, if and how they can be reproduced by others in different countries, the sustainability, impact on wilderness, and how it relates to Steady State Economy, Ecological Economics, and Indigenization efforts. If you want to learn more about it and hear all the sweet details, we appreciate you tuning in.

References mentioned

https://zalp.ch/stellenboerse/alpstellen

https://www.workaway.info/

Species distributions are an essential feature for a successful species conservation management. Data of presence/absence are quite simple to obtain and they are easily part of most inventory schemes, such as Bird Atlases and survey plots. After +100 years of bird banding, the current flurry of geotagging should improve knowledge on distributions. It should specifically be an easy feature for large species. The Great Grey Owl (Great Gray Owl in North America, Strix nebulosa)  is one of those species; it is c. 65cm tall and has a wingspan of 1,2m, occurring in the Old World and the New World from temperate to arctic regions. However, the actual distribution is poorly known and described, even major authorities differ, as discussed here. Rather than an icon of the wild, this species seems to be more of a road- and urban species, as shown with machine learning predictions when modeling best-available data in Alaska (Andrews 2019). Using Great Grey Owls, the presented problems centered around expert-drawn distribution maps are commonly found elsewhere too, while ML and Open Access dat provide progress and new insights crucially needed.

References (in order of relevance for this podcast)

Andrews P. (2019). First Machine Learning-Based Model Predictions Of Great Gray Owl (Strix Nebulosa) Distribution In Alaska: A Primer For Supporting

                                  Conservation Governance. Unpublished M.Sc.  University of Alaska Fairbanks.

WIKIPEDIA (2022) Great Grey Owl. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_grey_owl

BirdLife International (Data Zone) (2023). Great Grey Owl. http://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/great-grey-owl-strix-nebulosa

IUCN RedList (2022) Great Grey Owl. https://www.iucnredlist.org/search/map?query=Great%20Grey%20Owl&searchType=species

eBIRD (2022) Great Gray Owl. https://ebird.org/species/grgowl/US-WA-063

Sibley, D. (2000). The North American Bird Guide. Pica.

König, C., & Weick, F. (2008). Owls of the world. A&C Black.

Audubon Guide to North American Birds (2022) https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/great-gray-owl

NATURESERVE (2022) Great Gray Owl. https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.100756/Strix_nebulosa

This episode deals with the somewhat overlooked impact on 'deep nature' by the world economy and global trade, it uses a global bottleneck and strategic hotspot: the Panama Canal region.

While focusing on a re-interpretation and shifted emphasize of the results by Bellis et al (2018; sea anemones, abundance, diversity and genetics) it also takes further evidence from Karr (1990; birds), Basset et al. (2015; butterflies) and Huettmann (2015) for the Panama Canal region and beyond (Jackson et a;. 2001) as a convenient and subsidized conduit for world trade through international cargo ships connecting virtually all major ports in the world across oceans. This bottleneck now receives increasing pressures due to world-wide economic growth.

The science elaboration presented here is not really 'rocket science', but infers a robust evidence for a major issue and effect on earth re. how we live,

and towards betterment! 

References used in this podcast (order of mentioning)

Bellis, E. S., Edlund, R. B., Berrios, H. K., Lessios, H. A., & Denver, D. R. (2018). Molecular signatures of host specificity linked to habitat specialization in Exaiptasia sea anemones. Ecology and evolution, 8(11), 5413-5426.

Karr, J. R. (1990). Avian survival rates and the extinction process on Barro Colorado Island, Panama. Conservation Biology, 4: 391-397.

Basset Y., H. Barrios, S. Segar, R. B. Srygley, A. Aiello, A. D. Warren, F. Delgado et al. (2015) "The butterflies of Barro Colorado Island, Panama: local extinction since the 1930s." PLoS One 10, no. 8: e0136623.

Huettmann F (ed.) (2015) Central American Biodiversity: Conservation, Ecology, and a Sustainable Future. Springer New York,  805 pages. ISBN 978-1-4939-2207-9 (25 chapters authored and co-authored out of 32 + data appendix in dSPACE)

Jackson, J.  BC, M  X. Kirby, W. H. Berger, K. A. Bjorndal, L. W. Botsford, B. J. Bourque, R. H. Bradbury et al. (2001) "Historical overfishing and the recent collapse of coastal ecosystems." science 293, no. 5530: 629-637.

'Plankton" consists of phytoplankton (~plants) and zooplankton (-animals). It represents the basis of the ocean food chain and it includes many species; it's a very complex 'multi-species soup' representing a true science frontier hardly tackled, understood or managed yet. 

Copepods are part of that taxonomic set up and they contribute usually to the majority - up to 70% -  of zooplankton abundance in oceans. Using field data of the Italian National Antarctic Program from the 1980s and 1990s here we model-predict in an interdisciplinary international team effort for 26 copepod species at three ocean depth classes (0-10m, 11-70m, 71-750m) the relative index of occurrence (RIO) for the wider study area of the Ross Sea Region Marine Protected Area (a world-record MPA and ocean wilderness area of global size and relevance). This research uses Machine Learning/AI ensembles and Open Source Geographic Information System (GIS) methods to generalize from the Open Access dataset available from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF.org) using the 'Macroscope predictors' (see Huettmann et al. 2015 for details, source and use). Further details are provided in Grillo et al. (2022; compare also with Pinkerton et al. 2010).

This work matters as a global workflow template and it allows to obtain 3D models in GIS for plankton abundance, e.g. as needed for foraging estimates of marine mammals, penguins and fisheries. It can also be used for life-history research, carbon sequestration work in climate models as well as for baselines in carrying capacity formulas for fisheries and generic predator-prey studies.

The relevance of sound harvest models for krill and fish, e.g. in the so-called 'experimental' fisheries work with CCAMLR and the MPA in the Ross Sea has been outlined by Ainley et al. (2012) and others. Here we offer a solution towards sustainability in times of a generic ocean crisis.

References (selection; in order of citation)

Grillo M, F. Huettmann, L. Guglielmo and S. Schiaparelli (2022) Three-Dimensional Quantification of Copepods Predictive Distributions in the Ross Sea: First Data Based on a Machine Learning Model Approach and Open Access (FAIR) Data. Diversity 14:355. https://doi.org/10.3390/d14050355

Huettmann, F., M.S. Schmid, and G.R.W. Humphries (2015)  A First Overview of Open Access Digital Data for the Ross Sea: Complexities, Ethics, and Management Opportunities. Hydrobiologia 2015, 761, 97–119.

Pinkerton, M. H., A.N. Smith, B. Raymond, G.W. Hosie, B. Sharp, J.R. Leathwick and J.M. Bradford-Grieve (2010). Spatial and seasonal distribution of adult Oithona similis in the Southern Ocean: predictions using boosted regression trees. Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers 57: 469-485.

Ainley, D.G., C.M. Brooks, J.T. Eastman and M. Massaro (2012) Unnatural Selection of Antarctic Toothfish in the Ross Sea, Antarctica. In Protection of the Three Poles; Springer: Berlin/Heidelberg, Germany, pp. 53–75.0

(Photo credit: Andrei Savitsky - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=78800127)

This episode presents on Tropical Mountain and Cloud Forest issues, namely conservation, species diversity and ecology.

It uses an interview with Hazel Berrios and her wider tropical plant field experience.

This session discusses a multi-year field study experience by the author, and a 2 years M.Sc. thesis field work by HB in the cloud forest of Ometepe Island, Nicaragua. A focus is made on over 200 species of epiphytes and its open access data in Dryad, a topic not much addressed before.

References

Berríos Alvarez, H. K. (2019). Species richness patterns and plant size of vascular epiphytes along an elevation gradient in the tropical montane forest of volcán maderas, nicaragua (Order No. 13811988). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (2215571077). Retrieved from http://uaf.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/species-richness-patterns-plant-size-vascular/docview/2215571077/se-2?accountid=14470

Berrios H, Coronado I, Marsico T. [In review]. High species richness turnover of vascular epiphytes is associated with water availability along the elevation gradient of Volcán Maderas, Nicaragua. Authorea Preprints; 2021. DOI: 10.22541/au.163256507.73120492/v1.

Berrios, Hazel (2020), DATASET. Species richness and abundance of vascular epiphytes along an elevation gradient, Dryad, https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.bzkh1896h

Huettmann F. (2015) Conservation Research in the Cloud Forest of Central America with Lessons from Maderas Volcano, Ometepe, Nicaragua: A First-Person Narrative About Very Tough Fieldwork, Unfinished Data, and Climate Justice While Running Out of Time. In: F. Huettmann F. (ed.) Central American Biodiversity: Conservation, Ecology, and a Sustainable Future. Springer New York, pages 419-434