Publications

Land cover preferences and spatiotemporal associations of ungulates within a Scottish mammal community

Connor Lovell, Nathalie Pettorelli, Terence P. Dawson

In the degraded and modified environment of the Scottish Highlands, novel ungulate communities have arisen following local extinctions, reintroductions, and the introduction of non-native species. An understanding of the dynamics and interactions within these unique mammal communities is important as many of these mammals represent keystone species with disproportionate impacts on the environment. Using a camera trap survey, we investigated land cover preferences and spatiotemporal interactions within a Scottish ungulate community: the sika deer (Cervus nippon), the roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), the red deer (Cervus elaphus), and the wild boar (Sus scrofa). We used generalised linear models to assess land cover preferences and the effect of human disturbance; spatiotemporal interactions were characterised using time interval modelling. We found that sika deer and roe deer preferred coniferous plantations and grasslands, with sika deer additionally preferring woodland. For red deer, we found a slight preference for wetland over woodland; however, the explained variance was low. Finally, wild boar preferred grassland and woodland and avoided coniferous plantations, heathland, and shrubland. Contrary to our expectations, we found no evidence that human disturbance negatively impacted ungulates' distributions, potentially because ungulates temporally avoid humans or because dense vegetation cover mitigates the impacts of humans on their distributions. Furthermore, we detected a spatiotemporal association between sika deer and roe deer. Although the underlying cause of this is unknown, we hypothesise that interactions such as grazing facilitation or an anti-predator response to culling could be driving this pattern. Our work provides a preliminary analysis of the dynamics occurring within a novel ungulate community and also highlights current knowledge gaps in our understanding of the underlying mechanisms dictating the observed spatiotemporal associations.

Traps, apps and maps: to what extent do they provide decision-grade data on biodiversity?

Hannah Rudman, Ben Hart, Maggie English, Craig Turner, Elisa Fuentes-Montemayor & Mark S. Reed

Ecosystem services arising from the restoration of natural capital are now increasingly recognised as environmental opportunities and monetised, with international climate negotiations focussing on the need for investment into natural capital, and the finance sector pledging to invest. The finance sector has called for decision-grade, asset level data about nature projects in order to facilitate their reporting to investors. This paper offers a case study of novel digital data collection methods used to establish a baseline of faunal biodiversity in a Scottish nature-restoration project on the Bunloit estate which has secured private natural capital investment. Digital camera traps, acoustic sensors with eDNA samples and apps were used to create digital maps to ensure annual survey replication, and citizen scientist engagement. The results were classified by both professional ecologists and citizen scientists. We discuss how the digital data gathered through traps, apps and maps in the case study can be qualified as decision-grade data, according to the Taskforce for Nature-based Financial Disclosure’s specification. We conclude that decision-grade biodiversity data may be produced by practitioners, with limited resources, and make recommendations for data collection and governance methods to ensure nature restoration projects generate decision-grade data for ecosystem services markets.