Empty Forests and Extinction Filters

Informations

Funding country

Norway

Acronym

-

URL

-

Start date

1/1/2020

End date

12/31/2024

Budget

1,038,858 EUR

Fundings

Abstract

Conservationists face a challenge: more than a quarter of the world's mammal species are threatened with extinction. In an ideal world, we would know which species are vulnerable to what threats and how we can most effectively reduce species losses. The challenge is that many species are rare and unstudied, and we lack a clear understanding of what determines their vulnerability. This project seeks to remedy this by using wildlife photos and cutting-edge analyses and theory. Our main goal is to understand and predict vulnerabilities of tropical forest mammals to extinction. To accomplish this goal, the international project team is working on describing occupancy and activity patterns of mammal species across the tropics and exploring how these patterns are affected by different ecological and anthropogenic histories, contexts, and conditions. A key hypothesis to be tested during the project is the so-called extinction filter hypothesis. The idea is that species are more resilient to threats and conditions if they have survived similar threats or conditions in the past. The insights gained from our analyses will eventually be used to identify rules and relationships governing the vulnerability and persistence of tropical biodiversity. The project relies on camera-trap data collected by the Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring (TEAM) Network, the largest standardized tropical forest monitoring system. This database comprises more than 200 mammal species, and over two million photos. During the first two and a half years of the project, we have 1) developed four statistical models to assess and characterize occupancy dynamics, activity, and survival patterns of mammal species at multiple spatial scales. The analytical capacity and models developed during the first two years will serve as a foundation for the remainder of the project. 2) prepared the camera trapping data and an extensive database of both species-specific and environmental predictors for analysis. 3) applied our models to the TEAM dataset and have completed the first comprehensive quantification of occupancy dynamics, activity patterns, and survival of forest mammals across the tropics. In addition, we assessed how these patterns varied with species’ functional attributes. This was also our first test of the extinction filter hypothesis, which was supported in some of our study sites. 4) published 5 scientific articles describing these results, and several articles are under review or in preparation. 5) presented results at 6 conferences. Another goal of the project is to disseminate results to the scientific community but also to the wider public. EmptyForest garnered substantial public interest, with several of our articles picked up by the international press. We participated in a camera-trap symposium organized by NMBU, and we also presented our work to several members of the TEAM Network from different research institutions and NGOs around the world. We effectively used digital platforms to stay in touch with our collaborators and project partners during and after the pandemic. In 2022, we conducted a mini-symposium to exchange information about research done and coordinate upcoming research with members of the TEAM network. This symposium was a success and will be repeated within six months. Finally, we continue updating the project website (https://www.nmbu.no/en/projects/node/43481). In 2022, we were finally able to implement scientific exchange that was postponed by the COVID-19 pandemic. One postdoctoral fellow and one PhD student working with the project at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences spent over a month at Rice University, Houston, USA – where they collaborated closely with project partner Lydia Beaufort and interacted with her research group. A visit to project partner Douglas Sheil’s lab at Wageningen University by a postdoctoral fellow at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences was also made.