<p>Hawaiian monk seal abundance is currently declining by about 4% per year with current population estimates around 1,100 individuals. Although the overall population continues to decline, a small sub-population in the main Hawaiian Islands (MHI) appears to be increasing by roughly 6% per year. Monk seal conservation and recovery efforts in the MHI have been hindered by the perception that seals do not belong there, and that they compete with fisheries and damage coral reefs. Education and outreach efforts describing the actual impact of monk seals in the MHI are currently underway, but we actually know very little about their at-sea behavior, especially in the MHI, even though Hawaiian monk seals have been studied extensively since the 1980s. The central objective of my dissertation was to describe monk seal behavior and develop a baseline for monk seal foraging ecology and habitat use in the MHI. To accomplish this I combined three-axis accelerometers, National Geographic Crittercams, and GPS tags to study monk seal foraging behavior. I instrumented 16 seals between 2010 and 2014 on the islands of Molokai, Kauai, and Oahu and deployed an additional 24 GPS tags without the accelerometer and Crittercam. I recovered each Crittercam/accelerometer package 3-6 days after deployment, resulting in an average of 6.14 hours of video footage per seal. The GPS tags continued to record data for 3-6 months providing long-term summaries of dive and haul-out behavior. Using a Bayesian framework I modeled monk seal behavior and habitat use, and developed a method to identify feeding events from accelerometer data. There was a high level of individual variation in the movements of monk seals, but general descriptions of their behavior were accurate at the population level. On average, foraging trips lasted 0.81 ± 1.38 days and seals traveled 28.45 ± 82.03 km per trip. Most seals began benthic dives shortly after entering the water, with most dives occurring between 20-40 m. I used kernel density estimation to define the 50% (core area) and 95% (home range) utilization distribution for each seal. The median home range and core area size for seals in the MHI was 265.62 km2 and 1,564.56 km2, respectively. The pitch axis of the accelerometer was a reliable metric, with over 70% accuracy, for identifying foraging events for monk seals. Body motion over the course of a dive, and how close the seal was to the seafloor during a dive (dive ratio) were the best predictors of these foraging events. Consequently, dive ratio was used to infer foraging in long-term telemetry records that lacked concurrent accelerometer data. Analysis of these data relative to habitat preferences revealed two distinct movement modes for monk seals in the MHI: near shore and offshore/inter-island. My research developed the first thorough understanding of monk seal movements and habitat use in the MHI and provided insight into the mechanisms contributing to the behavioral variability observed for this species. I hope that a detailed understanding of the foraging behavior of monk seals will provide insight into their true role in the ecosystem and help foster the recovery of this critically endangered species.</p> / Dissertation

This thesis is a scientific contribution towards evaluating the effectiveness of Community-based Conservation (CBC) in saving biodiversity, protecting ecosystem services and enhancing human well-being. The impact of CBC interventions carried out by Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust over 109 villages in five conservation areas in Madagascar (Lake Alaotra, Baly Bay National Park, Menabe dry forest, Manombo rain forest, and Nosivolo River) since 1997, were retrospectively evaluated. The evaluation used a quasi-experimental design to contrast changes in a set of biodiversity and human wellbeing indicators in the intervention villages with 109 control villages, which were matched for a range of social and environmental attributes. In Chapter 2, findings suggest that over the period 2000-2014 the CBC approach has impacted the incidence of fire, resulting in a lower rate of increase in fire frequency. Although CBC interventions were not able to reduce forest loss, the rate of deforestation in CBC villages has generally been maintained at lower levels than in control villages. Political disruption, population size and travel cost (access and distance) to the villages were identified as important contributing factors towards an increase in the severity of fires and deforestation while access to mobile phones may help mitigate the pressures. In Chapter 3, results indicate that support to education through CBC interventions is significantly associated with improvements in educational attainment. However, analysis of the historical Index of Health Status at village level did not show evidence that provision of clean drinking water or other health interventions improved public health. In terms of human well-being (Chapter 4), there is no evidence that CBC interventions have any positive impact on the Multidimensional Poverty Index. Since poverty has been identified as a key factor reducing happiness, mutual trust, and power to change local decision-making, the claim that CBC will be effective in enhancing subjective well-being cannot be supported by the evidence from this study. According to the Index of Perception of Valued Ecosystem Services the declines in forest cover between 2000 and 2013 were observed by local people, with people in CBC villages demonstrating a greater propensity to note resulting changes in the provision of ecosystem services. This result could be of value when designing future CBC interventions. Maximum Entropy modelling using a set of environmental GIS layers was performed in Chapter 5 for predicting geographic distribution zones of four globally threatened species living exclusively in the five study areas. Results suggested that over the period 2000-2014 there has been a decline in habitat suitability expressed by a decrease in probability of presence of the species. Vegetation cover is predicted to be the most important factor affecting the variability of species distribution range. Potential factors responsible for the success of some actions and failure, others within the CBC approach are discussed and pragmatic recommendations are given at the end of the thesis. For example, transforming local associations into social enterprise could possibly motivate poorer households to join CBC efforts and thereby improve social and biodiversity impacts in the future.

With biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation ongoing, the conservationists' toolkit needs to be augmented by innovative and sometimes bold solutions. It is already apparent that the scale of the problem exceeds the capabilities of any one organisation working in isolation. However, collaboration between stakeholder groups may have the potential to enhance conservation outcomes. Cross-sector collaborations, such as those between non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and corporations, are proliferating in conservation. However, little is known about their efficacy and subsequent impact on the wider natural environment, with many assumptions based on anecdotal rather than empirical evidence. This thesis aims to fulfil an important and substantial knowledge gap by using data-driven approaches to understand partnerships in conservation from the perspective of conservation NGOs. Firstly, I assess the types and prevalence of partnerships between conservation NGOs and corporations and find a diverse range of projects are occurring. For example, financial donations are a frequent form of NGO-corporate interaction, but other collaborative activities such as terrestrial ecosystem restoration and educational activities, are regularly reported. Secondly, I evaluate an NGO-led collaborative network to understand what motivates organisations to initiate a membership committing them to voluntary environmental measures that go beyond regulatory compliance. Results suggest that the majority of members join to fulfil strategic objectives such as reputation protection, rather than for altruistic reasons. Furthermore, participants with stronger sustainability credentials occupy the most influential positions within the network, meaning that they are strongly positioned to receive and disseminate information. Lastly, I use social network analysis to explore how a conservation NGO delivers its landscape-scale conservation projects by acquiring key resources from multiple partners. Results indicate that partners providing land-based support are well connected with one another, meaning that landscape-scale conservation activities can be coordinated more easily. Furthermore, the in-kind support network, primarily comprising NGOs, displays the greatest innovative capacity. The research presented in this thesis highlights that cross-sector partnerships have a central role to play in bridging the interests of different stakeholder groups, and reflect the inclusive vision of conservation we should all be striving to create.

Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

The present study primarily examined habitat selection in the noctule bat by comparing used resources with samples of available resources. The distribution of individual bats of different reproductive status was also investigated, in relation to resources, to enable the prediction of future events under different habitat management scenarios. Individual bats were radio tracked to determine foraging and roosting habitat preferences in a cultural landscape. Noctules consistently preferred to forage over broadleaved woodland and pasture rather than arable land and moorland. A comparison of habitat use and foraging activity demonstrated that non-lactating bats used less preferred habitats significantly more than lactating bats. However, there was little difference in the timing of foraging activity or in the distances traveled to foraging grounds between the two groups. Roosting requirements were identified using data from three separate study sites and intraspecific roosting behaviour was investigated at the radio-tracking site. Noctules consistently selected old woodpecker holes that were larger, further from the ground and in more open situations. Lactating bats changed roosts less frequently and generally occupied one specific roost, which was larger than the other roosts used by the same colony. The echolocation calls used by noctules are particularly suited to monitoring using bat detectors. Formal evidence that noctule calls could be accurately identified from field recordings was obtained by comparing the calls from tracked bats with calls recorded from Leisler's bats.

A field survey to investigate the ecology of cardio-vascular disease in free living wild animals is described. Its aim was i) to assess the susceptibility of such animals to arteriosclerosis. and particularly to athero-sclerosis ii) to examine in greater detail the ecology of oardiovascular disease in a single, naturally-susceptible species in relation to dietary change and stress in naturally occurring situations. A total of 201 specimens, representing species of mammals and 25 of birds, was examined: 37 species of mammals had uncomplicated lipid deposits in the arterial intima, thought to represent a normal physiological occurrence; 13 had atheroma-like lesions of the intima; 20 species of birds shoved positive lipidosis. These findings. compared with those reported in taxonomioally equivalent groups of captive animals, are discussed. The African elephant was selected for special study. The eoology of its cardiovascular disease patterns was studied in three different habitat types: one natural (the 'control'). and two degenerate ('stressed'). Athero-sclerosis and medial sclerosis were found not to occur in the 'natural' habitat type, but to be directly correlated with habitat degeneration in the other two 'stressed ranges, where 'stress' factors included excessive exposure to sunlight, dietary changes, frustration of the migrator/ habit, disrupted calving patterns9 and over-population neither disease was found to be directly related to age, and each had a distinct intra-arterial development patterns the aetiology of each is therefore thought to be basically independent, although in advanced cases interaction may occur. Incidental results of the survey includes i) observations on the importance of relating the functional anatomy of the arterial supportive thickenings at ostia, bifurcation and regions of mechanical strain to the normal intra-aortic distribution of uncomplicated intimal lipid deposits; ii) observations on a valve-like structure in the aorta of the klipspringer; and iii) the formulation of a new field technique for assessing relative age in the African elephant.

Dwindling fossil fuels and the rising price of energy has meant that attitudes towards energy usage have changed in both domestic and commercial settings. This change in attitude has led to the development of smart metering technologies that are currently being rolled out across the world. The research has been developed to be able to add functionality to smart metering devices by providing information about energy usage within the premises through Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM). The thesis provides a detailed description of the work undertaken to develop a novel method of load disaggregation within NILM to aid in the monitoring of energy usage and the provision of consumer feedback which can be integrated into smart metering technologies. The research aims to provide a novel approach to NILM through the use of canopy clustering for its main process of load disaggregation. Canopy clustering provides the necessary tools for separating out appliances and groups of appliances for later classification into individual loads, which brings many benefits compared to other technologies. The research methodology has been developed with robust techniques of data gathering, model development and validation through a rigorous testing approach. Real world examples of loads have been used for the creation and development of the models. The use of contemporary appliances within the research has meant that the NILM algorithm developed is current and usable. In the final implementation it could be commercialised for use by the general public. The full procedures of the algorithm have been explained in detail with the addition of information on the final classification methods that could be used when implemented within smart metering devices. Further work and improvements to the research have also been included for consideration.

<p> Culverts are ubiquitous in urban and natural environments, installed to provide road access and erosion control, but often impact fish movements in freshwater habitats. Effects of culverts on marine and estuarine fish are not well-studied. This study aimed to understand the potential impacts of a culvert, which connects a large tidal bay and a coastal lagoon, on the movements of several species of fish. Habitat characteristics of both sites were analyzed to better understand these movements, including water parameters, sediment characteristics, and zooplankton, benthic macroinvertebrate, and small fish communities. The two habitats differed in terms of temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, zooplankton abundance, and community composition of zooplankton, benthic macroinvertebrates, and small fish. The culvert and associated grate limited large fish from moving between the two habitats likely due to body size and other morphological characteristics. Removing this barrier and replacing it with an open channel would increase connectivity between these two habitats which could improve trophic quality in the lagoon habitat and increase functionality overall.</p><p>

Global biodiversity is being lost at an unprecedented rate, such that we have entered the sixth mass extinction in the history of the earth with emerging infectious diseases (EID) recognised as an important contributor to this loss. Amphibian chytridiomycosis is an EID that has driven very rapid declines in, or even extinctions of, hundreds of amphibian species. Infectious diseases such as chytridiomycosis, caused by the fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), often persist in biological and non-biological reservoirs making them difficult to eradicate. In turn, this makes reintroductions of target species challenging due to the risk of infection. This thesis investigates the critically endangered mountain chicken (Leptodactylus fallax) as a case study of the population impacts of a chytridiomycosis epidemic and to test the effectiveness of strategies to mitigate the effects of the disease. Specifically, this research (1) charts the decline of the mountain chicken on the only two islands on which it exists, and determines the impact on genetic diversity; (2) tests whether anti-fungal treatment can improve the survival of mountain chickens with Bd infection in the wild; (3) examines the role of Bd reservoir species in causing Bd infections of reintroduced mountain chickens; and (4) determines habitat features that are predictors of infection at release sites. Chytridiomycosis drove the mountain chicken to near extinction on Dominica in 2002 and Montserrat in 2009, in one of the fastest recorded vertebrate species declines, leading to a significant loss of genetic diversity. On Montserrat, treating mountain chickens with an anti-fungal drug (itraconazole) during the chytridiomycosis epidemic improved survival rates and reduced Bd infection rates in the short term, but did not provide long-term protection. Although mountain chickens have been driven to near-extinction by Bd infection on Montserrat, the pathogen persists in two sympatric reservoir species which are not impacted by Bd infection, the most prolific of which (Eleutherodactylus johnstonei) displays strong seasonality in Bd infection prevalence and load. Timing mountain chicken reintroduction to occur during the period when tree frog Bd infection was at its lowest was tested to determine the impact on reintroduction success. Multi-state mark-recapture modelling applied post-release showed that optimising the timing of release reduced Bd infection rates and increased survival. Radio-tracking was utilised with geographic profiling to determine that release site water bodies were likely sources of Bd infection in reintroduced mountain chickens. This could inform targeted mitigation of the pathogen and improve future reintroduction success. Where species have been extirpated in the wild, and an irreversible threat such as an EID persists, novel reintroduction strategies are required. These include optimising the timing and conditions of release in order to minimise the impact of the threat along with targeted mitigation measures such as individual level treatments.

<p> Rivers in semi-arid regions are highly sensitive and pressured yet can support diverse assemblages of species. In central New Mexico, the Rio Grande (River) is the lifeblood of the Middle Rio Grande Valley (MRGV), a semi-arid region which maintains large urban and agricultural centers and is also the principal wintering area for the Rocky Mountain Population of greater sandhill cranes (<i>Antigone canadensis tabida</i>). Human-induced environmental change has transformed the MRGV and habitat availability prompting concerns for the population. To address these concerns, I investigated dietary and behavioral responses of sandhill cranes to the collection of features that function as winter habitat. In Chapter 1, I demonstrated a novel application of stable isotopes to evaluate dietary reliance of sandhill cranes on corn subsidies provisioned by natural resource agencies, estimated rates of carbon isotope incorporation in tissues of sandhill cranes, and estimated tissue-derived winter arrival dates of sandhill cranes. I found subsidized corn was the primary dietary component of sandhill cranes, rates of carbon isotope incorporation in sandhill crane tissues differed predictably by metabolic activity, and estimated tissue-derived arrival dates on wintering grounds approximated actual arrival dates. In Chapter 2, I advanced a hierarchical Bayesian framework for overcoming challenges and improving analysis of behavioral data frequently generated in animal behavior studies and used behavioral observations of sandhill cranes as a case study. In Chapter 3, I estimated energetic and temporal availability of corn subsidies and seasonal energy requirements of sandhill cranes. I found seasonal energetic requirements of the population are likely satisfied by corn subsides but not without strategic planning. In Chapter 4, I examined how current landscape and riverine configuration influenced patterns of diel habitat selection by sandhill cranes. Sandhill cranes avoided sources of anthropogenic disturbance, relied heavily on managed public land resources, and selected roosting locations in the Rio Grande with a wider channel, interspersion of sandbars and shallow water, and low channel bank vegetation. My research suggests sandhill cranes have coped with alterations that have led to current conditions in the MRGV, however, habitat-related resources will need to be managed adaptively as drivers of environmental change will undoubtedly influence future circumstances. </p><p>