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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...

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Autores principales: Anderson, Alissa K., Waller, John S., Thornton, Daniel H.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2023
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.
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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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