<p> Ecosystem services (ES), payments for ecosystem services (PES), and the development of markets for PES are transformational concepts and practices that emerged from environmental and ecological economics. Although the establishment of regulatory markets tends to be &ldquo;top down,&rdquo; there is evidence that more locally acceptable and successful markets tend to come from the community, from the &ldquo;bottom up.&rdquo; This meta-analysis analyzes 20 recent articles that examined approximately 454 PES cases from around the world, most organized from the bottom up. Cross-case analysis reveals possible best practices. Involving communities in design, decision-making, governance, and operation of local PES programs is found in many cases to contribute to improvements in both ecosystems and community livelihoods. Devolving project administration and ES provision monitoring to the local level is found to lower costs, increase project legitimacy, community equity, and leaves efficiency and fairness tradeoff decision-making in the hands of local communities. This in turn adds to feelings of competence, autonomy, and control. The experience of cooperative learning, skill acquisition, and enhanced individual and community capacities that results from participation in PES program design is found to positively influence social, cultural, economic, and multilevel political dynamics, allowing local sustainable resource use and management to emerge. In several cases, there are indications that this leads to a changed local and regional political economy due to successful value capture of enhanced ES resulting from restored ecosystems, as well as indications of other transformative changes in communities. These findings are used to provide recommendations to a watershed restoration initiative in the borderlands of Southern Arizona. </p><p>

abstract: The impact of urbanization on wildlife is becoming an important topic in conservation. However little is known concerning the proximate mechanisms involved which enable some species to persist in cities, while others perish. Adapting to novel city environments requires individuals to maintain a functional physiological response to stressful stimuli, while concurrently using the necessary resources (food) needed to persist. A primary function of the stress response is the mobilization of intrinsic energy resources, and thus both requirements (energy and stress) are explicably linked. This dissertation investigates the interaction of energetic reserves and the physiological stress response in a native bird species, the Curve-billed Thrasher, within the context of this species' colonization of Phoenix, Arizona. This research uses a combination of comparative studies, statistical modeling, and experimental approaches conducted in field and captive settings to demonstrate how urban and desert populations of these species differ in energetic state and stress physiology. These studies reveal that the current energetic status of an individual bird influences the secretion of glucocorticoids (primary stress hormones) and can alter how energy reserves are used for gluconeogenesis to produce energy during acute stress. In addition, this research also identifies how differing levels of a hypothalamic neuropeptide (vasotocin) may play a role in mediating differences in stress physiology between populations. The quantity of food available and even temporal variability in its abundance may alter how native birds respond to stress. Increased body condition offsets the costs of maintaining the stress response in urban areas. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Biology 2010

This thesis addresses six main objectives answering questions on the origin, nature and social organization of SNS and their custodians; motivations for, and BCD conservation consequences of, their maintenance; threats SNS and ancestral institutions face and existing governance and protection instruments, with focus on local perceptions among the Wonsho of Sidama, Ethiopia. The study employs anthropologically-oriented, but interdisciplinary, conceptual framework and mixed methods to collect and analyse data. A year of fieldwork (July 2012-June 2013) was carried out using six major data collection methods (including interviews, BD inventory and HHS). The data were analysed using NVivo 10 and SPSS 20/21. The results are presented and discussed in seven key thematic areas and six chapter headings. The main findings are summarized as follows: 1. Forty-eight SNS (whose sizes ranging from a site of a single tree to a 90.6 ha and ages from 28 to ca 375 years) were identified in seven PAs. Three criteria were used to identify a typology of Wonsho SNS: spatial-clan structure, function and protection status. SAR was identified as the core of the origin, social organization, governance and geography of SNS and other BCD protection areas. Twenty-two of SNS were protected by SAR practitioners and four by Protestant Christians. The rest were either lost or transformed. 2. Answers to the question of why SNS are maintained are interpreted as linked to ancestral conceptions of the natural world, knowledge about, and practice relating to, it. The people valued SNS and native trees as ‘life’, ‘beauty’, ‘ancestor symbolizers’, ‘temples’, ‘wealth’, ‘shade’, ‘healing agents’, ‘food banks’, ‘place and name identifiers’, and ‘tribunal courts’ among others. Certain salient norms and practices, supporting tree biodiversity, are identified and interpreted as the foundation of the motivation for the maintenance of SNS. 3. 154 floral and 33 faunal species were documented for their reported and observed past and present existence in 26 of the 48 SNS and other informal protection areas. A partial inventory identified about 133 flora and some fauna, including two locally endangered species, Colobus guerezza and Tauraco ruspoli in various SNSs. Twenty-two locally reported endangered native trees were found here, of which ten were reportedly found nowhere. Eighteen major woody species were identified as extractively conserved in various informal protection areas, notably agroforests. 4. Forty-three types of uses of trees were identified. Eighteen woody species were identified as playing crucial socio-economic role; seven of these being culturally important and Podocarpus falcatus was identified as a truly ‘cultural keystone species’. The maintenance of SNS and native trees has important role through provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural ecosystem services. 5. Maintenance of SNS and other botanic landscapes were found to contribute positively towards community health, herbal medicine and conservation of medicinal plants. SNS are perceived as key resources for health and wellbeing. Sixty-two percent of surveyed HHs accessed medicinal plants from SNS where 48% of the identified plants (including nine that were reported as locally endangered) were found. 6. The SNS and ancestral institutions faced threats. Fourteen SNS were lost, eight severely degraded through other land uses and the existing 26 also threatened in seven studied PAs. Twenty-two important native trees were reportedly threatened; ten of these exited only in the SNS. Twelve native woody species were reportedly lost. SAR is threatened (e.g. declined from 13.6% in 1994 to 2.7% in 2007). Eroding factors, especially external ones, have been intensifying since the 1890s, but momentum added over the past 50-60 years, salient drivers being introduction of cash economy, modern religions, modern education, misguided state policies, rapid population growth and resultant socio-economic pressures. 7. The SNS have for centuries been protected through ‘spirit agency and policing’ in a structure that gave supreme place to ancestors who influenced and guided governance. Some key principles of SNS management were identified, including ‘spirit-policing’, dreams and oracles in decision making, protecting entire habitat, protecting species, etc. In recent years, protection efforts have improved, with emerging collaborative governance, but these suffered from poor resourcing, coordination and fragmentation; and the future of SNS, native tree species and the SAR seemed uncertain despite some locals were optimistic. The study concludes the SNS and associated institutions of Wonsho have resiliently existed as ‘guardians of Sidama biocultural diversity’ and are showcases for the mutual adaptations of tree biodiversity and ancestral traditions. The study discusses a set of implications and recommendations for further research and action. The contribution of the study lies in the following areas which appear to be under-represented in the current literature: (a) qualitative analysis of the ontology, nature, structures, functions, geography and dynamisms of SNS and custodians, demonstrating that Wonsho SNS are not relics from static past but dynamic socio-ecological systems; (b) in-depth discussion of the role of SNS in conserving both biodiversity and cultural diversity; (c) a nuanced analysis of why and how the SNS are maintained, (d) local perceptions and parameters of the values and roles of, and threats facing, SNS and related local institutions; (e) our understanding of what constitutes ‘biocultural diversity’ and the indicators for cultural diversity when this concept is applied at a local scale; (e) interdisciplinary conceptual and analytical tools to understand the socio-ecological and biocultural systems embodied in sacred sites, combining concepts from a range of social and natural sciences, notably anthropology and conservation biology.

This dissertation presents the first evaluation of a VCA in terms of its multi-scalar governance approach with reference to the principles of the ICCAs category and the CPR principles for institutional arrangements for sustainable natural resource management. The research techniques applied to develop this research included: (1) document revision on national legislation for protected establishment and management; (2) forty four semi-structured interviews with conservation practitioners at different administrative levels, as well as (3) direct observations, 32 semi-structured and unstructured interviews to conform an in-depth case study of the VCA of El Reten, in San Miguel Chimalapa, Oaxaca, Mexico. Devolution processes in El Reten were analysed in terms of the bundles of rights or powers that local community holds for natural resource management after the certification of El Reten and during its early implementation. The issues examined by these dissertation have explored for the first time who is entitled to “give” which powers back to local communities; the actual procedures that allow these approaches to be called community-driven when ICCAs can only retain “power” by conforming to externally defined criteria, and finally, if devolution is happening, the way “bundles of rights” - or powers - (Ribot and Peluso 2003) interact with external criteria for conservation. The case study of El Reten provides clear examples of the implications of the formalisation of a VCA over local governance structures. These decentralised approaches for conservation are also subject to elite capture and the trade-offs between the availability of economic resources and local autonomy, as well as between administrative efficiency and equity and legitimacy. The VCA in El Reten represents the ideal scenario for the tragedy of the commons (Hardin 1968), where the establishment of a VCA, the arrival of economic incentives and the overlooking of the local political context by conservation agencies is fuelling the tragedy instead of alleviating it. This dissertation shows this explicitly in the context of the newly developed VCA category in Mexico for the first time.

<p> Thirty-four percent of Earth&rsquo;s arable land has been converted to agricultural uses, and increased agricultural intensification has been correlated with contemporary decreases in avian abundance and functional diversity. Farm-scale biodiversity enhancement features such as native woody plant hedgerows have been planted in crop margins with the expectations of attracting beneficial predators and pollinators, and of improved pest control and pollination services in adjacent crops. Despite ongoing investment and perceived benefits of these types of enhancements for biodiversity, few evaluations have tested their effectiveness at increasing avian diversity. A growing body of research has quantified crop pest reduction by birds with indirect benefits for yield, yet few studies have evaluated whether farm-scale conservation activities improve effect sizes of these services. Further, whether or not crop margin habitats confer fitness benefits necessary for avian population viability (i.e., survival and reproduction) remains almost entirely unstudied. On each of these fronts, landscape effects can counteract or interact synergistically with the effects of local activities, and assessment of farmland habitat enhancement must be done with explicit reference to landscape context. I conducted field research in a system of extant woody hedgerows and semi-natural riparian habitat patches among farmlands of the Sacramento Valley of California&rsquo;s Central Valley, USA to investigate three questions. Does farm-scale biodiversity enhancement and retention of semi-natural landscape habitat 1) influence patterns in avian abundance and diversity, 2) increase the rate of pest reduction by birds in adjacent crops, and 3) provide quality habitat and confer fitness benefits for avian occupants? In Chapter 1, and with collaborators, I sampled birds and habitat characteristics in 111 crop margins and landscape buffers during two winter and breeding seasons. We found that margins with hedgerows, treelines, or remnant riparian habitat harbored 2&ndash;3 times as many bird species and 3&ndash;6 times greater abundance than bare or weedy margins. Margin habitat type interacted with distance from semi-natural woodlands; hedgerow or riparian margins further from woodlands harbored more bird species. In Chapter 2, I performed a sentinel prey exclosure experiment in walnuts to compare pest cocoon predation rates by birds in 10 orchards with and 10 orchards without woody vegetation patches in their margins, and I characterized semi-natural cover within landscape buffers. Avian predator richness and abundance was greater in habitat orchard margins than in bare margins, and birds were confirmed predators of 23&plusmn;29% pest cocoons per orchard (range 0 &ndash; 80%). Pest predation rates did not increase with the presence of woody margin habitat. Instead, predation rates increased with the increasing size of orchard trees, avian predator abundance, and percentage of semi-natural cover in the landscape. In Chapter 3, I used a suite of environmental, body condition, and population measures in long-distance migratory <i>Zonotrichia</i> sparrows to quantify habitat quality at hedgerows and natural reserves along a gradient of connectivity and landscape habitat amount. Abundance and within-winter apparent survival was highest in connected hedgerows and natural reserves with the most woodland landscape cover. Isolated hedgerows were of poor quality for first year Gambel&rsquo;s white-crowned sparrows <i>(Z. leucophrys gambelii)</i> and the differences in within-winter apparent survival between first year and adult birds decreased significantly with increasing woodland landscape cover. The combined results suggest that farm scale habitat enhancement can be beneficial for birds in terms of local abundance and diversity, and within-winter apparent survival if connected to and among a sufficient percentage of other similar habitats. Farm scale enhancements can also be beneficial to growers by increasing the number of avian predators of crop pests. Yet, growers appear to benefit most by having crops located in landscapes with greater percentages of semi-natural landscape cover, where avian predation rates of crop pests were highest.</p><p>

Amphibians are the most threatened class of vertebrate, and rates of species decline and extinction far exceed those seen historically. Habitat loss, climate change, over-exploitation and emerging infectious disease have all been identified as threatening processes. The trade in amphibians has been implicated in over-exploitation through the harvesting of wild animals, and as an important pathway for the global spread of the fungal pathogen, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd). However, there are no analyses of how Bd may spread through the trade chain. This thesis addresses this issue by (1) determining the prevalence of Bd at different stages of the trade chain; (2) examining knowledge, husbandry protocols and biosecurity among retailers and (3) assessing the risk of Bd dissemination into the wild in the UK. Approximately 20,000 amphibians from at least 11 countries enter the UK annually via Heathrow Animal Reception Centre. Overall Bd prevalence was 3.6%, but was confined to six of the 43 genera encountered, and only detected in shipments from the USA and Tanzania. Amphibians were sold by 30% of the estimated 3500 livestock retailers in the UK, but made a low contribution to overall income. Disease awareness and knowledge in retailers was found to be lacking, although husbandry standards were deemed to be appropriate. Mortality appeared to be influenced by restocking methods and number of species held, but mass die-offs as a result of disease were generally uncommon. Screening of over 2000 amphibians from 148 retailers for Bd revealed a prevalence of 5.8%, but the geographic distribution of infection in the UK was patchy, and was more prominent in aquatic species. A risk assessment conducted according to the framework set out by the World Organisation of Animal Health, identified regions and sections of the trade that pose the greatest threats in terms of introducing Bd, and assessed various mitigation measures. The consequences of novel strains of Bd and a second, recently discovered Batrachochytrium species were found to pose a risk to both native UK and captive amphibians. As trade bans are unlikely to be feasible or effective, alternative measures to mitigate the impact of disease are evaluated.

<p> The Mariana crow (<i>Corvus kubaryi</i>), locally and henceforth in this document called Aga, is a critically endangered species endemic to two Northern Mariana Islands. Aga are extirpated (locally extinct) on Guam but still persist on Rota. Multiple studies calculate a 93%&ndash;95% population decline over thirty years, with a recent estimate of 170 Aga on Rota. The primary reason for the decline on Rota is unknown, though predation by introduced mammals, habitat loss, and harassment are likely. The majority of research concerning Aga is in the biological sciences. The only social science survey conducted on Rota regarding Aga revealed that the majority of adult residents condone harassing Aga; yet, knowledge amongst Rota's inhabitants about bird ecology in general remains low, and youth residents were not surveyed. My study developed and implemented an avian-focused environmental education curriculum intended to increase ecological literacy, and evaluated the curriculum using social science research methods. My curriculum was based in storytelling, kinetic activities, and place-based education. I collaborated with local teachers to align the 5-lesson curriculum to science standards. Pre- and post-surveys were conducted with 18 control and 18 treatment students to gauge knowledge and attitudes in elementary students on Rota. Formative evaluations were also used to understand the preferred learning styles of students. Overall, students displayed some improvement in their avian ecological knowledge and positive attitudes towards Aga, and the treatment group improved in bird identification. Students in the treatment group increased their Aga identification by 38.8%. Notable for the treatment group, 23.5% of students thought it was okay to chase Aga in the pre-survey, yet 0% thought it was okay to in the post-survey. To save Aga from extinction, long-term environmental education initiatives are needed to raise ecological literacy, increase appreciation of these birds, and empower citizen science efforts on Rota.</p><p>

<p> Involving a diversity of stakeholders in conservation issues is an important and growing trend in wildlife management. My thesis provides a case study of a collaborative conservation effort in which representatives from sportsmen&rsquo;s and environmental groups came together to advise the Arizona Game and Fish Department in a project to restore bighorn sheep to the Santa Catalina Mountains near Tucson, Arizona. These stakeholders formed the Catalina Bighorn Sheep Restoration Advisory Committee to help address the human dimension factors of the project, build public support, and guide project planning and implementation. In addition to participant observation and document analysis informing my study, I surveyed 31 stakeholders both on and off the Advisory Committee and interviewed key Advisory Committee members. All stakeholders were in favor of collaborative conservation. However, there were objections to this particular Advisory Committee for this particular project. Although stakeholders had a diversity of values that informed their beliefs, the Advisory Committee members who took the time to understand the science involved, develop mutual trust and respect for others at the table, and held a strong commitment to the project goals were able to shift deeply held, values-based beliefs and find consensus on contentious project elements. This included agreeing on a mountain lion management plan that called for the killing of mountain lions that preyed on the newly reintroduced bighorn sheep. Stakeholders not on the Advisory Committee did not come to agreement on most elements of the project. This study contributes to the understanding of collaborative conservation efforts by providing a case study of a controversial wildlife conservation project that involved diverse stakeholders who worked together, successfully found consensus, and achieved their main goal of getting bighorn sheep back on the mountain.</p><p>

<p> &ldquo;Biogeographic affinity&rdquo; describes the similarities in the flora and fauna of one location compared to those of another location, resulting from their common evolutionary history and/or their contemporary connectivity (Loveland and Merchant 2004). The existence of the biogeographic affinity hypothesis allows the hierarchical classification of regions into faunal, floristic or other biogeographic provinces. Additionally, the latitudinal biodiversity gradient (LBG; Brown and Lomolino 1998) is normally illustrated by a diverse tropical fauna at low latitudes and decreasing species richness with increasing latitude. Here, I compare the relative influences of biogeographic affinity and the primary ecological gradients of the southern Colorado Plateau in the Grand Canyon ecoregion (GCE, Table 2; elevation, litter accumulation, and anthropogenic influences) on the distribution and abundance of land mollusks. I test four specific null hypotheses: (1) Biogeographic affinity does not influence the distribution of GCE land mollusks, (2) GCE land mollusk species and assemblages are uniformly distributed across elevation, analogously reflecting the absence of biogeographic affinity, (3) Habitat patch size (spring area) does not influence GCE land mollusk species richness and (4) The GCE land mollusk assemblage is not strongly influenced by microhabitat factors that are independent of elevation impacts. </p><p> To test my hypotheses, I used classic and contemporary literature and museum collections to build a comprehensive species list for the Grand Canyon ecoregion. This list included spatial (location, elevation) and ecological (biogeographic affinity) data to test hypothesis 1 (proportional representation) and hypothesis 2 (neotropical to boreal distribution. across elevation). I also used randomly sampled terrestrial mollusks in three elevation zones at 19 paired spring and matrix habitat sites, while also recording environmental data on leaf litter depth, isopod presence or absence, grazing presence or absence at each sample, canopy cover and spring area at each site. These data were used to test hypothesis 3 (spring area-species diversity relationships) and 4 (measured site- specific independent variables will predict species diversity). </p><p> The results of this analyses show: 1. The GCE land mollusk fauna is not equally distributed across 7 North American Biogeographic Provinces. Instead, the GCE is overrepresented by boreal, alpine and temperate species. 2. This two-dimensional pattern of overrepresentation was preserved across (3-dimensional) elevational gradients within the GCE. Communities were at least 84% dissimilar between elevation zones, with New- World temperate and wide-ranging circumpolar species being the dominant drivers the mollusk community composition even at low elevation sites. 3. Shannon-Weiner diversity (supporting the Latitudinal Biodiversity Hypothesis) and leaf litter depth (productivity) within springs decreased with increasing elevation. 4. Among the measured physical (spring/matrix, litter depth, canopy cover, species-area) and anthropogenic (isopods, grazing) factors, elevation was the only one found to predict species community composition. </p><p> These results indicate that while springs in the southwest USA are presumed to be relictual habitats, temperate land mollusks still possess an apparent advantage over neotropical species even at low elevation springs, where they are more abundant and diverse. These data support the Latitudinal Biodiversity Gradient (LBG) in a novel and unusual way, where low elevation sites are the most diverse, but are characterized by wide-ranging temperate and boreal species, with significant community compositional change across elevation.</p><p>

One of the integral components of Canada’s Species at Risk Act (SARA) is recovery planning for threatened, endangered, or extirpated species in Canada. The recovery planning process is guided by recovery strategies, to be published within one year of listing for endangered species and within two years of listing for threatened or extirpated species, though publication has rarely met statutory timelines. Here I investigate factors associated with recovery strategy completion as well as factors associated with strategy content, specifically recovery feasibility, information gaps, and critical habitat identification. Despite significant delays in strategy publication, I find no evidence of internal prioritization of species for strategy completion, with only administrative factors retained in predictive models; species listed on Schedule 1, for which the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) or Parks Canada Agency (PCA) is the Responsible Authority, or which there was a smaller backlog of due strategies one year after listing were more likely to have recovery strategies submitted on time. Analysis of factors associated with recovery feasibility show a higher likelihood of feasible recovery for species for which critical habitat is identified, the DFO or PCA is the Responsible Authority, there are more identified information gaps, or for which the recovery strategy contains a section on potential socioeconomic conflict. There were fewer identified information gaps in recovery strategies for those species for which recovery strategies were published after the judgments of the Nooksack Dace (ND) and Greater Sage-Grouse (SG) court proceedings, there was a greater time elapsed between strategy due date and date of draft publication, or whose range does not fall on a provincial or federal protected area. Pre-ND and SG court judgements, critical habitat was less likely to be identified for species with a lower threat status, species included in multi-species or ecosystem plans, or species not found within provincial or federal protected areas. None of these biases were detected post-judgement, however, as rates of identification increased significantly and only recovery feasibility was associated with CH identification. These results point to some potential problems in the recovery planning process as currently implemented under SARA, and inform recommendations as to how these might be addressed.