Deciding where to reproduce is a major challenge for most animals. Many select habitats based upon cues of successful reproduction by conspecifics, such as the presence of offspring from past reproductive events. For example, some fishes select spawning habitat following odors released by juveniles whose rearing habitat overlaps with spawning habitat. However, juveniles may emigrate before adul...

Brazil’s Cerrado is a highly diverse ecosystem and it provides critical habitat for many species. Cerrado habitats have suffered significant degradation and decline over the past decades due to expansion of cash crops and livestock farming across South America. Approximately 1,800,000 km2 of the Cerrado remain in Brazil, but detailed maps and conservation assessments of the Cerrado are lacking....

Background: Habitat is the foundation for healthy and productive fisheries. For substrate spawning fish, lack of appropriate spawning substrate is inherently limiting and a lack of access to suitable spawning habitat will lead to population collapse. When specific properties of a habitat (e.g., temperature, depth, vegetation composition) are matched to the species’ ecological niche, a spawning ...

Central America is experiencing rapid forest loss and habitat degradation both inside and outside of protected areas. Despite increasing deforestation, the Caribbean region of Nicaragua plays an important role in the survival or extinction of large mammal populations in Central America given that it still retains core areas of habitat for large mammal species. The proposed interoceanic canal pr...

Habitat fragmentation effects on annual survival of the federally protected eastern indigo snake" (2012). NASA Publications. Paper 106. Abstract The eastern indigo snake (Drymarchon couperi) is a federally listed species, most recently threatened by habitat loss and habitat degradation. In an effort to estimate snake survival, a total of 103 individuals (59 males, 44 females) were followed usin...

Coastal marine and estuarine ecosystems are highly productive and serve a nursery function for important fisheries species. They also suffer some of the highest rates of degradation from human impacts of any ecosystems. Identifying and valuing nursery habitats is a critical part of their conservation, but current assessment practices typically take a static approach by considering habitats as i...

Persian gazelle, Gazella subgutturosa, exists throughout arid and semiarid regions of Iran and has a key role in these frail ecosystems. Habitat degradation and population decline has placed it on the list of vulnerable species in 2008. The phylogenetic relationships of three Persian gazelle populations in the central part of Iran (i.e. Ghamishlou National Park and Wildlife Refuge, Mouteh Wildl...

The ability of a receiver to detect a signal is a product of the signal characteristics at the sender, habitat-specific degradation of the signal, and properties of the receiver's sensory system. Active space describes the maximum distance at which a receiver with a given sensory system can detect a signal in a given habitat. Here the effect of habitat structure and urbanization on brown-headed...

Rapid fragmentation and degradation of large undisturbed habitats constitute major threats to biodiversity. Several studies have shown that populations in small and highly isolated habitat patches are prone to strong environmental and demographic stochasticity and increased risk of extinction. Based on community assembly theory, we predict recent rapid forest fragmentation to cause a decline in...