Wildlife Preservation Canada

About: Wildlife Preservation Canada is a based out in . It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Captive breeding. The organization has 32 authors who have published 25 publications receiving 673 citations.

Climate change impacts on bumblebees converge across continents

Abstract: For many species, geographical ranges are expanding toward the poles in response to climate change, while remaining stable along range edges nearest the equator. Using long-term observations across Europe and North America over 110 years, we tested for climate change–related range shifts in bumblebee species across the full extents of their latitudinal and thermal limits and movements along elevation gradients. We found cross-continentally consistent trends in failures to track warming through time at species’ northern range limits, range losses from southern range limits, and shifts to higher elevations among southern species. These effects are independent of changing land uses or pesticide applications and underscore the need to test for climate impacts at both leading and trailing latitudinal and thermal limits for species.

Weak effects of geolocators on small birds: A meta-analysis controlled for phylogeny and publication bias.

Abstract: Currently, the deployment of tracking devices is one of the most frequently used approaches to study movement ecology of birds. Recent miniaturization of light-level geolocators enabled studying small bird species whose migratory patterns were widely unknown. However, geolocators may reduce vital rates in tagged birds and may bias obtained movement data. There is a need for a thorough assessment of the potential tag effects on small birds, as previous meta-analyses did not evaluate unpublished data and impact of multiple life-history traits, focused mainly on large species and the number of published studies tagging small birds has increased substantially. We quantitatively reviewed 549 records extracted from 74 published and 48 unpublished studies on over 7,800 tagged and 17,800 control individuals to examine the effects of geolocator tagging on small bird species (body mass <100 g). We calculated the effect of tagging on apparent survival, condition, phenology and breeding performance and identified the most important predictors of the magnitude of effect sizes. Even though the effects were not statistically significant in phylogenetically controlled models, we found a weak negative impact of geolocators on apparent survival. The negative effect on apparent survival was stronger with increasing relative load of the device and with geolocators attached using elastic harnesses. Moreover, tagging effects were stronger in smaller species. In conclusion, we found a weak effect on apparent survival of tagged birds and managed to pinpoint key aspects and drivers of tagging effects. We provide recommendations for establishing matched control group for proper effect size assessment in future studies and outline various aspects of tagging that need further investigation. Finally, our results encourage further use of geolocators on small bird species but the ethical aspects and scientific benefits should always be considered.

Population history of the Hispaniolan hutia Plagiodontia aedium (Rodentia: Capromyidae): testing the model of ancient differentiation on a geotectonically complex Caribbean island.

Abstract: Hispaniola is a geotectonically complex island consisting of two palaeo-islands that docked c. 10 Ma, with a further geological boundary subdividing the southern palaeo-island into eastern and western regions. All three regions have been isolated by marine barriers during the late Cenozoic and possess biogeographically distinct terrestrial biotas. However, there is currently little evidence to indicate whether Hispaniolan mammals show distributional patterns reflecting this geotectonic history, as the island's endemic land mammal fauna is now almost entirely extinct. We obtained samples of Hispaniolan hutia (Plagiodontia aedium), one of the two surviving Hispaniolan land mammal species, through fieldwork and historical museum collections from seven localities distributed across all three of the island's biogeographic regions. Phylogenetic analysis using mitochondrial DNA (cytochrome b) reveals a pattern of historical allopatric lineage divergence in this species, with the spatial distribution of three distinct hutia lineages biogeographically consistent with the island's geotectonic history. Coalescent modelling, approximate Bayesian computation and approximate Bayes factor analyses support our phylogenetic inferences, indicating near-complete genetic isolation of these biogeographically separate populations and differing estimates of their effective population sizes. Spatial congruence of hutia lineage divergence is not however matched by temporal congruence with divergences in other Hispaniolan taxa or major events in Hispaniola's geotectonic history; divergence between northern and southern hutia lineages dates to c. 0.6 Ma, significantly later than the unification of the palaeo-islands. The three allopatric Plagiodontia populations should all be treated as distinct management units for conservation, with particular attention required for the northern population (low haplotype diversity) and the south-western population (high haplotype diversity but highly threatened).

Conservation Genomics of the Declining North American Bumblebee Bombus terricola Reveals Inbreeding and Selection on Immune Genes

Abstract: The yellow-banded bumblebee Bombus terricola was common in North America but has recently declined and is now on the IUCN Red List of threatened species. The causes of B. terricola's decline are not well understood. Our objectives were to create a partial genome and then use this to estimate population data of conservation interest, and to determine whether genes showing signs of recent selection suggest a specific cause of decline. First, we generated a draft partial genome (contig set) for B. terricola, sequenced using Pacific Biosciences RS II at an average depth of 35×. Second, we sequenced the individual genomes of 22 bumblebee gynes from Ontario and Quebec using Illumina HiSeq 2500, each at an average depth of 20×, which were used to improve the PacBio genome calls and for population genetic analyses. The latter revealed that several samples had long runs of homozygosity, and individuals had high inbreeding coefficient F, consistent with low effective population size. Our data suggest that B. terricola's effective population size has decreased orders of magnitude from pre-Holocene levels. We carried out tests of selection to identify genes that may have played a role in ameliorating environmental stressors underlying B. terricola's decline. Several immune-related genes have signatures of recent positive selection, which is consistent with the pathogen-spillover hypothesis for B. terricola's decline. The new B. terricola contig set can help solve the mystery of bumblebee decline by enabling functional genomics research to directly assess the health of pollinators and identify the stressors causing declines.

A question of scale: Replication and the effective evaluation of conservation interventions

Abstract: Conservation interventions can keep critically endangered species from going extinct and stabilize threatened populations. The species-specific, case-by-case approaches and small sample sizes inherent to applied conservation measures are not well suited to scientific evaluations of outcomes. Debates about whether a method “works” become entrenched in a vote-counting framework. Furthermore, population-level replication is rare but necessary for disentangling the effects of an intervention from other drivers of population change. Turtle headstarting is a conservation tool that has attracted strong opinions but little robust data. Logistical limitations, such as those imposed by the long lives of turtles, have slowed experimental evaluation and constrained the use of replication or experimental controls. Headstarting project goals vary among projects and stakeholders, and success is not always explicitly defined. To facilitate robust evaluations, we provide direction for data collection and reporting to guid...