El Salvador has the smallest protected areas system in Central America. High levels of habitat destruction and disturbance throughout the country make the reserve system especially important for conservation of biodiversity. I used complementarity approaches to assess the relative conservation importance of ten reserves in El Salvador. The principal criterion was presence of nationally threatened and endangered bird species. Additional criteria included residency status (resident species were more important than migratory non-breeding species) and regionally endemic species. Montecristo National Park was the most important area, with 42% of all nationally threatened birds present. El Imposible National Park, El Salvador's largest park (5000 ha), scored second, followed by Laguna El Jocotal wildlife refuge and Barra de Santiago wildlife refuge. In all, these four areas provide refuge for 83% of El Salvador's 268 nationally threatened bird species in less than 7600 ha of natural habitat. Because of small reserve sizes, all of El Salvador's threatened birds may need additional protection.

Field ecologists in Everglades National Park know that the dynamics of water flow affect the breeding success of wading birds. A number of recent studies have suggested foraging success as the primary causal link. Data on the number and location of foraging birds are available from the Systematic Reconnaissance Flights, monthly aerial surveys of wading birds and surface water condition. A set of regression models were developed that predict the number of foraging birds observed in the Park at the beginning of May, a crucial period in the breeding season of almost all wading birds in this area. Predictor variables were obtained by converting the observations of surface water condition into three indexes that describe (1) the amount of surface water in the Park in January (near the beginning of the ‘dry’ season), (2) the rate at which it dries over the subsequent months, and (3) the amount of disruption to that drying process. An information-theoretic measure, ICOMP(IFIM), was used to choose on the basis of parsimony between the large set of possible models that incorporate these predictors. Most species were best predicted by the same few models, and the fitted model parameters were also similar, indicating that the same pattern of surface water dynamics was optimal for most species. The optimal pattern was: intermediate water levels at the beginning of the dry season, a rapid rate of drying, and no disruption in the drying process. A number of disruptions in drying since 1985 have been the result of releases of water from the flow-control structures at the northern boundary of Everglades National Park. Reducing or eliminating these unnatural hydrological events should help wading bird populations to increase.

This study examined the effects of alteration of tropical rainforest vegetation structure and composition on bird community structure and the influence of life-history traits on species persistence in the Kalakad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve, Western Ghats. Systematic sampling for vegetation and point count surveys for birds were carried out in cardamom plantations abandoned for 5 and 15 years, plantation-rainforest edges, a selectively logged forest patch and adjoining undisturbed rainforest sites. Principal components analysis of vegetation variables revealed clear differences between undisturbed and altered sites in woody plant and cane densities, canopy cover and vertical stratification. Bird species richness was lowest in cardamom plantations abandoned for 5 years and highest in logged and undisturbed forest. Bird species richness and similarity with undisturbed forest were significantly positively related to the vegetation component representing woody plant and cane (Calamus spp.) densities. Sites that were more similar in tree species composition had more similar bird communities whereas similarity in foliage profile between sites did not influence bird community similarity. Birds that were rare, were large-bodied and belonged to the carnivore, omnivore, bark-surface feeder and terrestrial insectivore guilds were adversely affected by habitat alteration. Restoring woody plant and cane densities and rainforest floristic composition in disturbed habitats may be required for management and conservation of bird communities typical to the region.

Insular breeding seabirds are likely to be particularly vulnerable to introduced mammalian predators because they often lack behavioural, morphological and life-history defenses against predation. We studied the life-history of the black-vented shearwater (Puffinus opisthomelas) on Natividad Island, Baja California Sur, Mexico, to examine its vulnerability to introduced feral cats. Using an allometric equation, we estimated that feral cats consumed 328 g of food day-1 to satisfy their nutritional requirements. We used stable isotope analysis of cat scat to estimate that 90% of the cats' diet was composed of shearwaters. Using data from our focal species and from the closely related manx shearwater (Puffinus puffinus), we created a demographic model to evaluate the effects of cat population size on the annual growth rate (λ) of the shearwater. The annual growth rate for black-vented shearwaters was estimated to be 1.006 in the absence of cat predation. With predation, we estimated that annual growth rate declined approximately 5% for every 20 cats in a population of 150,000 birds. Persistence times of bird colonies decreased both with an increase in the size of the feral cat population and with a decrease in the size of the initial bird population.

Logging and poaching have dramatically reduced chimpanzee density and distribution in the Republic of Congo. Most chimpanzee translocations attempted in the past failed because a number of biological and non-biological factors can influence success. Biological considerations include knowledge of behaviour, disease, habitat requirements and genetics. We critically review genetic considerations in pre- and post-release phases of translocations and apply them to a welfare-based chimpanzee release project in the Republic of Congo which aimed to re-establish orphan chimpanzees in the wild with a native chimpanzee population. We analyze genetic diversity and relatedness in released animals and devise a genotyping strategy for monitoring of released individuals and their future offspring. Fifty-nine confiscated chimpanzees from different areas of the Republic of Congo were typed for 20 microsatellites using plucked hair as the DNA source. Genetic diversity was high, with an average expected heterozygosity of 81%, and three to 18 alleles per locus. Between 1996 and 1998, 19 individuals were released, and genetic analysis showed that these are unrelated (mean r ± jack-knifed SD = −0.014 ± 0.001). Using FST and population admixture analysis, we identified population structure in wild chimpanzees. For long-term genetic monitoring of released and native chimpanzees, we identified a set of six informative markers, which are easy to score using basic techniques.

Theoretical estimates of long-term minimum viable population (MVP) sizes for mammals indicate MVPs of tens of thousands, even a million. However, data to test the theoretical estimates are effectively non-existent. I here use information on distributions of primates on islands of southeast Asia to provide empirical estimates of the size of multi-millennial MVPs following the post-Pleistocene insularization in the Sunda region. Small Sunda region islands have fewer taxa than do large ones. Assuming extinction on the small islands, the MVP size is somewhere between the population size on the smallest island on which the taxon is extant and that on the largest island on which the taxon no longer exists (population size calculated as density of taxon by area of land available). Results for eight to ten genera (depending on the taxonomy) on 35 islands indicate MVPs of perhaps a few score for Nycticebus (loris) and Macaca (macaque) to several thousands, or scores of thousands, for Pongo (orang-utan) and Symphalangus (siamang). Large-bodied taxa have significantly larger MVPs than do small-bodied taxa. Only four protected areas in southeast Asia are large enough to conserve the smaller MVPs of the siamang and orang-utan.

To ensure the effective conservation of biodiversity the distribution of species needs to be accurately characterized and areas of high species richness located. For many taxa this can be achieved only by experienced taxonomists. Taxonomic research has a large input from non-professional or amateur researchers, in addition to professionals working at museums or universities. The decline of taxonomy and the number of taxonomists within the professional community has been widely publicized, but the trends in the activities of amateur taxonomists are unclear. Because amateurs contribute many valuable records of species occurrence this may have a disproportionate impact upon the information available for conservation planning and represents an underappreciated threat to conservation planning. We use taxonomic research by UK entomologists in order to evaluate the changing role of both amateur and professional taxonomists. We reviewed contributions by British-based authors to Entomologist's Monthly Magazine over the past century. Our results show that both amateur and professional taxonomy have undergone a long and persistent decline since the 1950s, in terms of both the number of contributors and the number of papers contributed. It is argued that the conservation community needs to help try and reverse the decline of taxonomy.

Understanding livestock grazing impacts on native wildlife is difficult when grazing is pervasive and has a long history. Spiti Valley in the Indian Trans-Himalaya is characterized by overstocking of rangelands and a grazing history of over 3 millennia. An intriguing aspect of the wild large-herbivore assemblage in Spiti Valley is its low diversity. In the present theoretical exploration, data on body masses of wild large-herbivore species in the Trans-Himalaya are examined against the backdrop of competition theory, to evaluate the possible role of competition in structuring the herbivore assemblage. The analysis is then expanded to include the livestock assemblage, and the possibility of the low wild herbivore diversity in Spiti Valley being a consequence of the high livestock diversity is explored. Null model analyses suggest that competitive interactions may have played a role in structuring the Trans-Himalayan wild herbivore assemblage. This is reflected in a proportional regularity in species body masses, with each species, on average, being a constant proportion larger than the nearest smaller one. Such a proportional regularity is absent in the livestock assemblage. The analyses make a case for the competitive exclusion of at least four wild grazers in Spiti over the last 3 millennia. The present grazer assemblage conforms reasonably to the theoretical predictions - these four species are among the six wild herbivores presently missing from Spiti. The implications of the analyses for conservation management in the Trans-Himalaya are discussed.