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Partial COVID-19 closure of a national park reveals negative influence of low-impact recreation on wildlife spatiotemporal ecology
Human presence exerts complex effects on the ecology of species, which has implications for biodiversity persistence in protected areas experiencing increasing human recreation levels. However, the difficulty of separating the effect on species of human presence from other environmental or disturban...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9839714/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36639399 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-27670-9 |
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author | Anderson, Alissa K. Waller, John S. Thornton, Daniel H. |
author_facet | Anderson, Alissa K. Waller, John S. Thornton, Daniel H. |
author_sort | Anderson, Alissa K. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Human presence exerts complex effects on the ecology of species, which has implications for biodiversity persistence in protected areas experiencing increasing human recreation levels. However, the difficulty of separating the effect on species of human presence from other environmental or disturbance gradients remains a challenge. The cessation of human activity that occurred with COVID-19 restrictions provides a ‘natural experiment’ to better understand the influence of human presence on wildlife. Here, we use a COVID-19 closure within a heavily visited and highly protected national park (Glacier National Park, MT, USA) to examine how ‘low-impact’ recreational hiking affects the spatiotemporal ecology of a diverse mammal community. Based on data collected from camera traps when the park was closed and then subsequently open to recreation, we found consistent negative responses to human recreation across most of our assemblage of 24 species, with fewer detections, reduced site use, and decreased daytime activity. Our results suggest that the dual mandates of national parks and protected areas to conserve biodiversity and promote recreation have potential to be in conflict, even for presumably innocuous recreational activities. There is an urgent need to understand the fitness consequences of these spatiotemporal changes to inform management decisions in protected areas. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9839714 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-98397142023-01-15 Partial COVID-19 closure of a national park reveals negative influence of low-impact recreation on wildlife spatiotemporal ecology Anderson, Alissa K. Waller, John S. Thornton, Daniel H. Sci Rep Article Human presence exerts complex effects on the ecology of species, which has implications for biodiversity persistence in protected areas experiencing increasing human recreation levels. However, the difficulty of separating the effect on species of human presence from other environmental or disturbance gradients remains a challenge. The cessation of human activity that occurred with COVID-19 restrictions provides a ‘natural experiment’ to better understand the influence of human presence on wildlife. Here, we use a COVID-19 closure within a heavily visited and highly protected national park (Glacier National Park, MT, USA) to examine how ‘low-impact’ recreational hiking affects the spatiotemporal ecology of a diverse mammal community. Based on data collected from camera traps when the park was closed and then subsequently open to recreation, we found consistent negative responses to human recreation across most of our assemblage of 24 species, with fewer detections, reduced site use, and decreased daytime activity. Our results suggest that the dual mandates of national parks and protected areas to conserve biodiversity and promote recreation have potential to be in conflict, even for presumably innocuous recreational activities. There is an urgent need to understand the fitness consequences of these spatiotemporal changes to inform management decisions in protected areas. Nature Publishing Group UK 2023-01-13 /pmc/articles/PMC9839714/ /pubmed/36639399 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-27670-9 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article Anderson, Alissa K. Waller, John S. Thornton, Daniel H. Partial COVID-19 closure of a national park reveals negative influence of low-impact recreation on wildlife spatiotemporal ecology |
title | Partial COVID-19 closure of a national park reveals negative influence of low-impact recreation on wildlife spatiotemporal ecology |
title_full | Partial COVID-19 closure of a national park reveals negative influence of low-impact recreation on wildlife spatiotemporal ecology |
title_fullStr | Partial COVID-19 closure of a national park reveals negative influence of low-impact recreation on wildlife spatiotemporal ecology |
title_full_unstemmed | Partial COVID-19 closure of a national park reveals negative influence of low-impact recreation on wildlife spatiotemporal ecology |
title_short | Partial COVID-19 closure of a national park reveals negative influence of low-impact recreation on wildlife spatiotemporal ecology |
title_sort | partial covid-19 closure of a national park reveals negative influence of low-impact recreation on wildlife spatiotemporal ecology |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9839714/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36639399 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-27670-9 |
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