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Trends and biases in African large carnivore population assessments: identifying priorities and opportunities from a systematic review of two decades of research

African large carnivores have undergone significant range and population declines over recent decades. Although conservation planning and the management of threatened species requires accurate assessments of population status and monitoring of trends, there is evidence that biodiversity monitoring m...

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Autores principales: Strampelli, Paolo, Campbell, Liz AD, Henschel, Philipp, Nicholson, Samantha K., Macdonald, David W., Dickman, Amy J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9703985/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36452072
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.14354
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author Strampelli, Paolo
Campbell, Liz AD
Henschel, Philipp
Nicholson, Samantha K.
Macdonald, David W.
Dickman, Amy J.
author_facet Strampelli, Paolo
Campbell, Liz AD
Henschel, Philipp
Nicholson, Samantha K.
Macdonald, David W.
Dickman, Amy J.
author_sort Strampelli, Paolo
collection PubMed
description African large carnivores have undergone significant range and population declines over recent decades. Although conservation planning and the management of threatened species requires accurate assessments of population status and monitoring of trends, there is evidence that biodiversity monitoring may not be evenly distributed or occurring where most needed. Here, we provide the first systematic review of African large carnivore population assessments published over the last two decades (2000–2020), to investigate trends in research effort and identify knowledge gaps. We used generalised linear models (GLMs) and generalised linear mixed models (GLMMs) to identify taxonomic and geographical biases, and investigated biases associated with land use type and author nationality. Research effort was significantly biased towards lion (Panthera leo) and against striped hyaena (Hyaena hyaena), despite the latter being the species with the widest continental range. African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) also exhibited a negative bias in research attention, although this was partly explained by its relatively restricted distribution. The number of country assessments for a species was significantly positively associated with its geographic range in that country. Population assessments were biased towards southern and eastern Africa, particularly South Africa and Kenya. Northern, western, and central Africa were generally under-represented. Most studies were carried out in photographic tourism protected areas under government management, while non-protected and trophy hunting areas received less attention. Outside South Africa, almost half of studies (41%) did not include authors from the study country, suggesting that significant opportunities exist for capacity building in range states. Overall, large parts of Africa remain under-represented in the literature, and opportunities exist for further research on most species and in most countries. We develop recommendations for actions aimed at overcoming the identified biases and provide researchers, practitioners, and policymakers with priorities to help inform future research and monitoring agendas.
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spelling pubmed-97039852022-11-29 Trends and biases in African large carnivore population assessments: identifying priorities and opportunities from a systematic review of two decades of research Strampelli, Paolo Campbell, Liz AD Henschel, Philipp Nicholson, Samantha K. Macdonald, David W. Dickman, Amy J. PeerJ Biodiversity African large carnivores have undergone significant range and population declines over recent decades. Although conservation planning and the management of threatened species requires accurate assessments of population status and monitoring of trends, there is evidence that biodiversity monitoring may not be evenly distributed or occurring where most needed. Here, we provide the first systematic review of African large carnivore population assessments published over the last two decades (2000–2020), to investigate trends in research effort and identify knowledge gaps. We used generalised linear models (GLMs) and generalised linear mixed models (GLMMs) to identify taxonomic and geographical biases, and investigated biases associated with land use type and author nationality. Research effort was significantly biased towards lion (Panthera leo) and against striped hyaena (Hyaena hyaena), despite the latter being the species with the widest continental range. African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) also exhibited a negative bias in research attention, although this was partly explained by its relatively restricted distribution. The number of country assessments for a species was significantly positively associated with its geographic range in that country. Population assessments were biased towards southern and eastern Africa, particularly South Africa and Kenya. Northern, western, and central Africa were generally under-represented. Most studies were carried out in photographic tourism protected areas under government management, while non-protected and trophy hunting areas received less attention. Outside South Africa, almost half of studies (41%) did not include authors from the study country, suggesting that significant opportunities exist for capacity building in range states. Overall, large parts of Africa remain under-represented in the literature, and opportunities exist for further research on most species and in most countries. We develop recommendations for actions aimed at overcoming the identified biases and provide researchers, practitioners, and policymakers with priorities to help inform future research and monitoring agendas. PeerJ Inc. 2022-11-25 /pmc/articles/PMC9703985/ /pubmed/36452072 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.14354 Text en © 2022 Strampelli et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Biodiversity
Strampelli, Paolo
Campbell, Liz AD
Henschel, Philipp
Nicholson, Samantha K.
Macdonald, David W.
Dickman, Amy J.
Trends and biases in African large carnivore population assessments: identifying priorities and opportunities from a systematic review of two decades of research
title Trends and biases in African large carnivore population assessments: identifying priorities and opportunities from a systematic review of two decades of research
title_full Trends and biases in African large carnivore population assessments: identifying priorities and opportunities from a systematic review of two decades of research
title_fullStr Trends and biases in African large carnivore population assessments: identifying priorities and opportunities from a systematic review of two decades of research
title_full_unstemmed Trends and biases in African large carnivore population assessments: identifying priorities and opportunities from a systematic review of two decades of research
title_short Trends and biases in African large carnivore population assessments: identifying priorities and opportunities from a systematic review of two decades of research
title_sort trends and biases in african large carnivore population assessments: identifying priorities and opportunities from a systematic review of two decades of research
topic Biodiversity
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9703985/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36452072
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.14354
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