Research Priorities from Animal Behaviour for Maximising Conservation Progress

Alison L Greggor; Oded Berger-Tal; Daniel T Blumstein; Lisa Angeloni; Carmen Bessa-Gomes; Bradley F Blackwell; Colleen Cassady St Clair; Kevin Crooks; Shermin de Silva; Esteban Fernández-Juricic; Shifra Z Goldenberg; Sarah L Mesnick; Megan Owen; Catherine J Price; David Saltz; Christopher J Schell; Andrew V Suarez; Ronald R Swaisgood; Clark S Winchell; William J Sutherland

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2016.09.001

Research Priorities from Animal Behaviour for Maximising Conservation Progress

Trends Ecol Evol. 2016 Dec;31(12):953-964. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2016.09.001. Epub 2016 Sep 28.

Authors

Alison L Greggor¹, Oded Berger-Tal², Daniel T Blumstein³, Lisa Angeloni⁴, Carmen Bessa-Gomes⁵, Bradley F Blackwell⁶, Colleen Cassady St Clair⁷, Kevin Crooks⁸, Shermin de Silva⁹, Esteban Fernández-Juricic¹⁰, Shifra Z Goldenberg¹¹, Sarah L Mesnick¹², Megan Owen¹³, Catherine J Price¹⁴, David Saltz², Christopher J Schell¹⁵, Andrew V Suarez¹⁶, Ronald R Swaisgood¹³, Clark S Winchell¹⁷, William J Sutherland¹⁸

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biological Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA. Electronic address: [email protected].
² Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Midreshet Ben-Gurion, Israel.
³ Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
⁴ Department of Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA.
⁵ Ecologie Systématique Evolution, Université Paris-Sud, CNRS, AgroParisTech, Université Paris-Saclay, Orsay, France.
⁶ U.S. Department of Agriculture, Wildlife Services, National Wildlife Research Center, Fort Collins, CO, USA.
⁷ Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.
⁸ Department of Fish, Wildlife, & Conservation Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA.
⁹ Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, USA; Trunks & Leaves Inc, Newtonville, MA, USA.
¹⁰ Purdue University, Department of Biological Sciences, West Lafayette, IN, USA.
¹¹ Department of Fish, Wildlife, & Conservation Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA; Save the Elephants, Nairobi, Kenya.
¹² Southwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, CA, USA.
¹³ Institute for Conservation Research, San Diego Zoo Global, Escondido, CA, USA.
¹⁴ School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
¹⁵ Department of Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA; U.S. Department of Agriculture, Wildlife Services, National Wildlife Research Center, Fort Collins, CO, USA.
¹⁶ Department of Animal Biology and Department of Entomology, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL, USA.
¹⁷ U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Conservation Partnerships Program, Carlsbad, CA, USA.
¹⁸ Conservation Science Group, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.

PMID: 27692480
DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2016.09.001

Abstract

Poor communication between academic researchers and wildlife managers limits conservation progress and innovation. As a result, input from overlapping fields, such as animal behaviour, is underused in conservation management despite its demonstrated utility as a conservation tool and countless papers advocating its use. Communication and collaboration across these two disciplines are unlikely to improve without clearly identified management needs and demonstrable impacts of behavioural-based conservation management. To facilitate this process, a team of wildlife managers and animal behaviour researchers conducted a research prioritisation exercise, identifying 50 key questions that have great potential to resolve critical conservation and management problems. The resulting agenda highlights the diversity and extent of advances that both fields could achieve through collaboration.

Keywords: Delphi method; animal behaviour; conservation biology; horizon scan; policy priorities; wildlife management.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Animals
Animals, Wild*
Behavior, Animal
Conservation of Natural Resources*
Humans
Research
Research Personnel