Engaging farmers in environmental management through a better understanding of behaviour

The United Kingdom’s approach to encouraging environmentally positive behaviour has been three-pronged, through voluntarism, incentives and regulation, and the balance between the approaches has fluctuated over time. Whilst financial incentives and regulatory approaches have been effective in achieving some environmental management behavioural change amongst farmers, ultimately these can be viewed as transient drivers without long-term sustainability. Increasingly, there is interest in ‘nudging’ managers towards voluntary environmentally friendly actions. This approach requires a good understanding of farmers’ willingness and ability to take up environmental activities and the influences on farmer behavioural change. The paper aims to provide insights from 60 qualitative farmer interviews undertaken for a research project into farmers’ willingness and ability to undertake environmental management, particularly focusing on social psychological insights. Furthermore, it explores farmers’ level of engagement with advice and support networks that foster a genuine interest, responsibility and a sense of personal and social norm to sustain high quality environmental outcomes. Two conceptual frameworks are presented for usefully exploring the complex set of inter-relationships that can influence farmers’ willingness to undertake environmental management practices. The research findings show how an in-depth understanding of farmer’s willingness and ability to adopt environmental management practices and their existing level of engagement with advice and support are necessary to develop appropriate engagement approaches to achieve sustained and durable environmental management.     

Designing fecal pellet surveys for snowshoe hares

Index methods can be valuable for monitoring forest-dwelling vertebrates over broad spatial or temporal scales. Fecal pellet counts are often used as an index of density or habitat use of snowshoe hares, Lepus americanus, but previous surveys have used different plot types and sample sizes, leading to problems comparing results from different studies and questions about the inferential power of each study. In this paper, we use field data and simulations to examine how the precision, bias, and efficiency of four commonly used plot types vary with plot type, pellet density, and sample size. Although no one plot type was consistently superior, we recommend thin rectangles (5.08 cm × 305 cm (2 in. × 10 ft), 0.155 m²) or 1 m² circles over 0.155 m² circles or 10 cm × 10 m (1 m²) rectangles. We recommend that researchers explicitly address the power of their survey design to detect different pellet densities, because much larger sample sizes are needed at low pellet densities than at high pellet densities to obtain similar precision. Small sample sizes are also much more likely to be biased, which could lead to incorrect inferences about management of snowshoe hare populations. Both uncleared and cleared plots performed well and will have value in different research contexts.     

radR: an open-source platform for acquiring and analysing data on biological targets observed by surveillance radar

Background  

Radar has been used for decades to study movement of insects, birds and bats. In spite of this, there are few readily available software tools for the acquisition, storage and processing of such data. Program radR was developed to solve this problem.     

Above- and belowground responses to tree thinning depend on the treatment of tree debris

Mechanical mastication is increasingly prescribed for wildfire mitigation, yet little is known about the ecological impacts of this fuels treatment. Mastication shreds trees into woodchips as an alternative to tree thinning and burning the resulting slash, which can create soil disturbances that favor exotic plants. Previous research on mastication has not simultaneously considered both the responses of soil organisms and understory plant communities. We compared mastication to slash pile burning (both 6-months and 2.5-years post-treatment) and untreated controls in pinyon–juniper (Pinus edulis–Juniperus osteosperma) woodland and measured soil properties, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and understory plant composition. Our results showed that slash pile burns had severely degraded soil properties and low AMF abundance and richness compared to untreated or mastication plots. Pile burns were dominated by exotic plant species and had approximately 6× less understory plant abundance and richness than untreated plots. Only two variables differed between mastication and untreated plots 6-months post-treatment: mastication had lower soil temperature and higher soil moisture. Mastication plots 2.5-years post-treatment had more plant cover and richness than untreated plots or pile burns, although non-native Bromus tectorum cover was also greater and AMF spore richness was lower than untreated plots. The structural equation model (SEM) we developed showed that plant cover strongly influenced AMF abundance (0.50) and both plant cover (0.36) and AMF (0.31) positively influenced soil stability. In the short-term, mastication is a preferable method as it creates fewer disturbances than pile burning; however long-term impacts of mastication need further study as this practice could affect native plant communities. Our results suggest that the manner in which woody debris is treated following tree thinning has an important influence on soil stability and native plant biodiversity.     

Satellite tracking of wild dogs in south-eastern mainland Australian forests: Implications for management of a problematic top-order carnivore

Satellite tracking was used to follow the movements of a problematic top-order carnivore, the wild dog (Canis lupus dingo, C. lupus familiaris and their hybrids), in contiguous forested landscapes in south-eastern mainland Australia. Home range sizes of wild dogs were much larger than previously determined using conventional telemetry methods, averaging 10,000 ha with a maximum size of 59,000 ha over approximate 3-month periods. Wild dogs at sites with high abundance of kangaroos, wallabies and rabbits had smaller areas of occupancy than did dogs at sites with low availability of these preys. Despite mostly large home ranges, tracked animals were loyal to publicly-owned tenure and there were few instances where individuals moved large distances on to adjacent private tenure. Instead, movement behaviours of most tracked animals were characterised by repeated short distance forays, often at acute angles from previous locations. Consequently, home ranges were stable and otherwise well defined. Analysis of DNA from our study animals indicated that most individuals were of ‘dingo’ ancestry, but otherwise considered hybrids because of the presence of domestic dog genes. Only two of 24 animals could be considered as ‘pure’ dingo. Contemporary wild dog management demarcates lands where control is or is not undertaken, with the latter notionally acting to ‘conserve’ dingoes. Due to the large scale of movement of animals, existing control efforts likely impact over a greater area than previously suspected. Furthermore, our genetic findings suggest that conservation of dingoes in south-eastern mainland Australia is difficult to achieve. A modified approach to wild dog management is needed, taking account of the extent of range of individual animals and the existing genetic characteristics of populations.