When does agriculture enter into conflict with wildlife? A global assessment of parrot–agriculture conflicts and their conservation effects

Do human-wildlife interactions predict offspring hiding strategies in peri-urban fallow deer?

Human activities can induce significant behavioural changes in wildlife. Often explored through extractive interactions (e.g. hunting) that can favour certain behavioural traits, the implications of non-extractive ones, such as wildlife feeding, remain understudied. Research shows that people tend to favour bolder individuals within populations despite their dynamics and consequences being unclear. Using fallow deer in a peri-urban environment, we studied whether mothers that show reduced fear of humans and consistently approach them for food adopt weaker anti-predator strategies by selecting less concealed fawning bedsites closer to human hotspots. This would provide the advantage of additional feeding opportunities in comparison with shyer mothers while keeping their fawns close. Our dataset encompassed 281 capture events of 172 fawns from 110 mothers across 4 years. Surprisingly, mothers that regularly accepted food from humans selected more concealed bedsites farther from human hotspots, giving their offspring better protection while also benefitting from additional food during lactation. Our results show behavioural adaptations by a subset of females and, for the first time, link the tendency to approach humans and strategies to protect offspring. Given previous findings that these begging females also deliver heavier fawns at birth, our research further investigates human-wildlife feeding interactions and their behavioural implications.

Novel food resources and conservation of ecological interactions between the Andean Araucaria and the Austral parakeet

In fragile ecosystems, the introduction of exotic species could alter some ecological processes. The Austral parakeet (Enicognathus ferrugineous) shows close ecological and evolutionary relationships with the Andean Araucaria (Araucaria araucana), so any alteration in these interactions may have negative consequences for both partners and for ecosystem functioning and structure. We conducted extensive roadside surveys to estimate the abundance of parakeets in the northern Patagonian Andes over 4 years and recorded the food plants consumed by foraging flocks. The use of native habitats and humanized areas like villages and farms was influenced by the Araucaria seed crop. In masting years, the large seed crop allowed a massive use of this resource during the non-breeding season, and even during the breeding season. The exploitation of exotic plants was minor in the masting year, but became predominant in non-masting years, especially during the non-breeding season. This feeding switch towards exotic plants primarily arose because the low Araucaria seed crop in non-masting years is entirely consumed just after production by domestic and wild exotic mammals living in Araucaria forests year-round, thus forcing the displacement of parakeets towards anthropic habitats to exploit exotic plants. Given the degradation of the remaining Andean Araucaria forests due to the impact of exotic mammals on the ecological interaction between Araucaria and Austral parakeets, ambitious programs to exclude or reduce the density of these alien mammals, including livestock, are warranted.

Confounding Rules Can Hinder Conservation: Disparities in Law Regulation on Domestic and International Parrot Trade within and among Neotropical Countries

Simple Summary

Wildlife trade represents one of the main causes of biodiversity loss worldwide. In an attempt to control this practice, both international and national legislation has been adopted to regulate trapping and trade in wild animals. For parrots, one of the most traded bird orders, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has regulated their international legal trade since 1975. However, wildlife regulations within Neotropical countries—the main sources for the past international trade—vary widely and differ from the international ones. This complex legislative framework translates into a lack of knowledge on the legal status of this activity in many countries, including within the scientific community. This confusion may be increasing the conservation problems of many vertebrate groups.

Abstract

Wildlife trade is a major driver of biodiversity loss worldwide. To regulate its impact, laws and regulations have been implemented at the international and national scales. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has regulated the international legal trade since 1975. However, an important volume of illegal trade—mainly within countries—continues to threaten several vertebrate groups, which could be due to a lack of specific legislation or enforcement of existing regulations. Our aim was to gain a more accurate picture of poaching and legal possession of native parrots as pets in the Neotropics, where illegal domestic trade is currently widespread. We conducted a systematic search of the laws of each of the 50 countries and overseas territories, taking into account their year of implementation and whether the capture, possession and/or sale of parrots is permitted. We compared this information with legal exports reported by CITES to assess differences between the enforcement of international and national trade regulations. We found that only two countries (Guyana and Suriname) currently allow the capture, trade and possession of native parrots, while Peru allowed international legal trade until recently. The other countries have banned parrot trade from years to decades ago. However, the timing of implementation of international and national trade regulations varied greatly between countries, with half of them continuing to export parrots legally years or decades after banning domestic trade. The confusion created by this complex legal system may have hindered the adoption of conservation measures, allowing poaching, keeping and trade of protected species within and between neighboring countries. Most countries legally exported Neotropical parrot species which were not native to those countries, indicating that trans-border smuggling often occurred between neighboring countries prior to their legal exportations, and that this illicit activity continues for the domestic trade. Governments are urged to effectively implement current legislation that prohibits the trapping and domestic trade of native parrots, but also to develop coordinated alliances and efforts to halt illegal trade among them. Otherwise, illegal trade will continue to erode the already threatened populations of a large number of parrot species across the Neotropics.

Roadside Car Surveys: Methodological Constraints and Solutions for Estimating Parrot Abundances across the World

Parrots stand out among birds because of their poor conservation status and the lack of available information on their population sizes and trends. Estimating parrot abundance is complicated by the high mobility, gregariousness, patchy distributions, and rarity of many species. Roadside car surveys can be useful to cover large areas and increase the probability of detecting spatially aggregated species or those occurring at very low densities. However, such surveys may be biased due to their inability to handle differences in detectability among species and habitats. We conducted 98 roadside surveys, covering > 57,000 km across 20 countries and the main world biomes, recording ca. 120,000 parrots from 137 species. We found that larger and more gregarious species are more easily visually detected and at greater distances, with variations among biomes. However, raw estimates of relative parrot abundances (individuals/km) were strongly correlated (r = 0.86–0.93) with parrot densities (individuals/km2) estimated through distance sampling (DS) models, showing that variability in abundances among species (>40 orders of magnitude) overcomes any potential detectability bias. While both methods provide similar results, DS cannot be used to study parrot communities or monitor the population trends of all parrot species as it requires a minimum of encounters that are not reached for most species (64% in our case), mainly the rarest and more threatened. However, DS may be the most suitable choice for some species-specific studies of common species. We summarize the strengths and weaknesses of both methods to guide researchers in choosing the best–fitting option for their particular research hypotheses, characteristics of the species studied, and logistical constraints.

Feeding ecology of the Green-cheeked Parakeet, Pyrrhura molinae (Psittaciformes, Psittacidae), in a subtropical forest of Argentina

Although there are studies on certain aspects of the feeding ecology of several species of Neotropical parrots, there is scarce ecological information about Pyrrhura molinae – a Psittacidae species which is widely distributed in South America and abundant in the Yungas of Argentina. For two years (May 2014 to June 2016), the composition and seasonal variation in the Green-cheeked Parakeet diet in the Yungas Piedmont forest in Jujuy, Argentina were examined. Furthermore, fruiting phenology transects were established to evaluate food resource availability and the patterns of food resource used by the Green-cheeked Parakeet. In 214 food plant trees, it was found that flower and dry fruit availability was highest in the dry season, and fleshy fruit production peaked in the wet season, but these phenology patterns for aged plant species suggest that there were no significant differences in food availability. The consumption of 18 plant species was recorded, being Celtis iguanaea (30.73%) and Trema micrantha (22.01%) the most consumed species. In terms of food items, fruits were the most consumed items, followed by seeds and flowers and, to a lesser extent, nectar and leaves. Levins’ niche breadth showed varying levels of diet specialisation amongst seasons, which was narrower (B = 0.28) in the wet season, indicating specialisation in diet during this season. There was a medium overlap in parakeet diet between seasons (Morisita Index = 0.59). We did not find a statistically significant relationship between resource availability and food use, but expansion and contraction in Levins Index and variation in food items consumed throughout the year and season demonstrate high flexibility in the diet. Like other congeners, the Green-cheeked Parakeet has a flexible diet that could be adjusted to the seasonal availability of food resources. These data may contribute to the design of conservation plans for the species and its habitat.