Significance of difference-female behavior vs. male behavior.

Significance of difference-female behavior vs. male behavior.

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Tourism-induced disturbance is a growing concern in wildlife conservation worldwide. This case study in a key protected area in Sri Lanka, examined the behavioral changes of Asian elephants in the context of elephant watching tourism activities. Observations of different age–sex-group classes of elephants were conducted focusing on the feeding acti...

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... shown in Fig. 3, both male and female elephants clearly showed a higher number of disturbance indicators and longer duration of such indicators in the presence of tourists compared to absence of tourists (Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test P- value for frequency = 2.2e−16 and for duration = 2.2e−16). Male elephants showed more stress and aggressive behaviors compared to female elephants in terms of frequency of behaviors (Table 2). The analysis of adult male elephants in different group types showed a low frequency of four behaviors in solitary adult males compared to adult males in other group types (Fig. 4, P-value for Fisher's exact test pairwise comparison Solitary-Male pair = 0.0005, Solitary-Male group = 0.019, Solitary-Group = 0.0175). ...

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The study, is based on the desk research process on the best practices for sustainable tourism-related certification schemes with a special focus on worldwide certification schemes for tourism businesses (tour operator and accommodation sector), and destinations where are included protected areas. In addition an analysis on respective national-regi...

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... The lower limit for the number of citations of a study was 10 citations, and a total of 41 studies were analyzed ( Figure 6). Ranaweerage et al. (2015), and Guerra et al. (2014) examined the impacts of tourism in the sea. In particular, it was concluded that noise from tour boats negatively affects aquatic mammalian organisms. ...
... Scientific studies have shown that sound-related factors can also affect tourist satisfaction and perceptions of service quality (He et al., 2019;Jiang et al., 2020;Lu et al., 2022;. The impact of tourismrelated noise on animals and plants is an issue that has been studied extensively (Bracciali et al., 2012;Carreño & Lloret, 2021;Erbe et al., 2019;Guerra et al., 2014;Heiler et al., 2016;Holles et al., 2013;Marley et al., 2017;Ranaweerage et al., 2015). If we look at the classification of scientific journals already published, we see aquatic science, environmental science, ocean engineering, water science, global and planetary change, and animal science. ...
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This study aims to provide an overview of the development of tourism-related "noise" studies in the academic process. Thus, the most current research stream on the subject is clarified. First, a systematic literature review was conducted, and then bibliometric analysis was applied to the data obtained via VOSviewer. In this article, 102 studies published until January 2024 were examined. The journals in which the studies on the related topic were mainly published were identified, and it was found that in most of the tourism journals with a high impact factor, there were no related studies. The thematic evolution of the topic was determined in the framework of the network relationship drawn for the common keywords used. It was found that the Covid-19 pandemic shaped the field of study. In addition, a link map was drawn for all relevant researchers and studies. This paper provides a research agenda for future researchers.
... However, despite the importance of wildlife-viewing tourism to economies in many African nations, its effects on wildlife behavior and populations are still poorly understood (Wardle et al., 2021). Several studies suggest tourism activities can negatively impact wildlife, leading to increased fear, aggression, and vigilance (Dyck & Baydack, 2004;Ranaweerage et al., 2015), reduced reproductive fitness (Broekhuis, 2018;Giese, 1996), habituation to humans (F abregas et al., 2021;Higginbottom, 2004;Ringstad, 2015), and increased physiological stress responses (Fowler, 1999) in a variety of species. For example, Szott et al. (2019) observed behavioral changes in African elephants (Loxodonta africana) in response to tourism pressure, observing increased aggression, movement away from tourist areas, and increased vigilance at waterholes. ...
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Human impacts on the environment and wildlife populations are increasing globally, threatening thousands of species with extinction. While wildlife‐based tourism is beneficial for educating tourists, generating income for conservation efforts, and providing local employment, more information is needed to understand how this industry may impact wildlife. In this study, we used motion‐activated cameras at 12 waterholes on a private game reserve in northern Namibia to determine if the presence of humans and permanent infrastructure affected mammal visits by examining their (1) number of visits, (2) time spent, and (3) diel activity patterns. Our results revealed no differences in the number of visits based on human presence for any of the 17 mammal species studied. However, giraffes (Giraffe camelopardalis) spent more time at waterholes before observer presence compared to during. Additionally, several species changed diel activity patterns when human observers were present. Notably, several carnivore and ungulate species increased overlap in their activity patterns during periods while humans were present relative to when humans were absent. These modifications of mammal temporal activity patterns due to human presence could eventually lead to changes in community structure and trophic dynamics because of altered predator–prey interactions. As humans continue to expand into wildlife habitats, and wildlife‐based tourism increases globally, it is imperative that we fully understand the effects of anthropogenic pressures on mammal behavior. Monitoring of wildlife behavioral changes in response to human activity is crucial to further develop wildlife tourism opportunities in a way that optimizes the impact of conservation goals.
... While tourist camps offer opportunities for intimate and relaxing activities such as feeding and bathing, time allocated to tourist activities can lead to reduced feeding time . Furthermore, Ranaweerage, Ranjeewa & Sugimoto (2015) found that the presence of tourists often triggers increased alertness, fear, stress, and aggression in elephants, and higher tourist numbers have been linked to increased aggression and stress in elephants . Thus, the tool differentiates human-elephant interactions between mahouts and tourists. ...
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Background Approximately one-third of Asian elephants are managed under human care, participating in educational, cultural, religious, and tourist activities. Management conditions vary considerably among venues, raising questions about whether welfare needs are consistently being met, particularly for Asian tourist camp elephants. To evaluate the well-being of elephants engaged in tourist activities, an evidence-based tool is needed for routine assessments to identify potential welfare risks, aid in the development of better camp standards, and enable caretakers to address specific concerns. While many animal welfare tools exist, none have been designed to consider specific environments and management practices faced by elephants living and working in tourist camps. Methods Using direct observations and interviews, the Elephant Welfare Assessment Tool (EWAT) was developed for tourist camp elephants using the Five Domains Model as a framework. Measures were selected based on peer-reviewed literature, existing standards and guidelines, and opinions from animal welfare experts working with zoo and tourist camp elephants. The EWAT differs from existing tools by including criteria on work activities and restraint methods ( e.g ., chaining and ankus use), factors common in Asia but not often encountered by western zoo elephants. Measures were scored using a 0–2 Likert Scale. The tool was tested in Thailand and determined by calculating a content validity index (CVI) and conducting inter-rater and test-retest reliability tests. Results The initial tool included 18 animal-based and 21 resource-based measures across four domains: Nutrition ( n = 5), Environment ( n = 14), Health ( n = 10), and Behavior and Mental State ( n = 10). Index scores of content validity (CVI) (Item CVI (0.83), Scale CVI/Average (0.98), and Scale CVI/Universal (0.89)) were high. Measures scoring less than 0.83 were removed: the opportunity to mate, the mahout-elephant relationship, and mahout job satisfaction. The final tool consisted of 42 questions related to 36 measures, including 18 animal-based and 18 resource-based measures within the Nutrition ( n = 5), Environment ( n = 11), Health ( n = 10), and Behavior and Mental State ( n = 10) domains. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) for inter-rater reliability (0.78–0.90, p < 0.05) and test-retest (0.77–0.91, p < 0.05) analyses conducted at two camps showed good agreement. Conclusions This new assessment tool (EWAT) is a context-specific, holistic method designed to offer a practical means of conducting individual and institutional-level assessments of elephant welfare in tourist camps. It is based on the Five Domains Model using reliable and validated animal- and resource-based measures, data collection through direct observation and interviews, and a numerical scoring system. The tool includes several criteria applicable to tourist rather than zoo venues to make it more relevant to the challenges faced by working elephants in Asia.
... The same study further reports the likelihood of African elephants showing avoidance or flushing behaviors in the presence of increasing vehicle traffic. A study conducted on Asian elephants in Sri Lanka revealed similar behavioral responses with the frequency and duration of alert, fear, stress, disruption to feeding and aggressive behaviors of elephants showing a significant increase in the presence of tourists (Ranaweerage et al., 2015). Large carnivores such as lions are more likely to exhibit vigilance behaviors (characterized by sitting or standing), and avoidance (moving away) in the presence of tourists, and significantly more likely to perform relaxation behaviors (such as rolling, grooming) when tourists are absent (Hayward and Hayward, 2009). ...
... Animals may perceive close encounters as threats or intrusions into their territory, thus triggering defensive behaviors, such as aggressive displays, vocalizations, or physical attacks. For instance, aggressive behaviors of Asian elephants toward humans are significantly higher when confronted by tourists (Ranaweerage et al., 2015). African elephants have been reported to show increased conspecific-directed aggression as tourist pressure has increased, and male elephants were more likely to exhibit such behaviors compared to female elephants (Szott et al., 2019). ...
Chapter
Animal behavior is influenced by tourism in a multitude of ways and depends on the species as well as various tourism scenarios. Accordingly, the way humans interact with wildlife in tourism settings can be clearly understood via the wildlife tourism paradigm which particularly explores observing, feeding and photographing wildlife. While the management of these key wildlife tourism activities calls for scientific evidence-based approaches we further prioritize animal welfare, visitor education, the establishment of ethical guidelines and codes of conduct. We further suggest implementing management strategies that balance conservation goals with visitor satisfaction in fostering sustainable wildlife tourism futures.
... The development of tourism exacerbates anthropogenic activities, which can directly or indirectly affect plants, microorganisms, and other organisms. Endangered plants, mangroves, and nature reserves are important tourism resources that are influenced by human activities [58]. Microorganisms play a crucial role in nutrient cycling, energy conversion, and maintaining ecological balance within ecosystems. ...
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Microbial communities are an important component of mangrove ecosystems. In order to reveal the diversity of endophytic fungi in the mangrove ferns Acrostichum speciosum and A. aureum in China, the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions of endophytic fungi in four plant tissues (leaves, petioles, roots, and rhizomes) from three locations (Zhanjiang, Haikou, and Wenchang) were sequenced. The richness, species composition, and community similarity were analyzed. The main results are as follows: the dominant fungi in A. speciosum and A. aureum belonged to the phyla Ascomycota and Basidiomycota, accounting for more than 75% of the total identified fungi; in terms of species composition at the operational taxonomic unit (OTU) level, the endophytic fungi in A. aureum were more diverse than those in A. speciosum, and the endophytic fungi in rhizomes were more diverse than in other tissues. In Zhanjiang, both A. speciosum and A. aureum showed the richest diversity of endophytic fungi, both at the OTU classification level and in terms of species composition. Conversely, the richness of endophytic fungi in the samples of A. speciosum from Wenchang and Haikou is extremely low. The regional differences in dominant fungi increase with the degrading of taxonomic levels, and there were also significant differences in the number of unique fungi among different origins, with Zhanjiang samples having a larger number of unique fungi than the other locations. There were significant differences in the dominant fungi among different tissues, with Xylariales being the dominant fungi in rhizomes of A. speciosum and Hypocreales being the dominant fungi in the petioles, roots, and rhizomes of A. aureum. Overall, the community similarity of endophytic fungi among locations is moderately dissimilar (26–50%), while the similarity between tissues is moderately similar (51–75%). The low diversity of endophytic fungi could be one of the main reasons for the endangerment of A. speciosum. The protection of the diversity of endophytic fungi in the underground parts of A. speciosum is essential for the conservation of this critically endangered mangrove fern.
... However, increases in the number of visitors to national parks can have positive and negative impacts on nature, such as the destruction of vegetation [7] and harmful health effects on wildlife [8]. The damage to nature and overcrowding by visitors can also deteriorate the quality of the visitor experience [9]. ...
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In the pursuit of sustainable national park management, park managers need to understand the interests and activities of their diverse visitors in order to conserve the natural environment and offer a better visitor experience. This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of using non-geotagged social media data from posts by park visitors for park management in comparison with geotagged data, which has been studied more extensively. We compared (1) visitors’ sociodemographic characteristics between geotagged and non-geotagged social media users through an onsite survey in Nikko National Park, Japan, and (2) the content of geotagged and non-geotagged photos shared within the study area on X (formerly Twitter). Our results showed that visitors in their 30s and 40s and foreign visitors had a greater tendency to use geotags. Non-geotagged photos more frequently and deeply capture nature-based activities and interests, including activities on trails, such as mountain climbing and hiking, and an interest in diverse animals and plants and landscapes that are less accessible. These findings indicate that non-geotagged social media data may have less age and nationality bias and advantages over the more widely-used geotagged data in capturing various nature-based experiences offered by national parks. Leveraging both geotagged and non-geotagged data can enable park managers to implement sustainable practices catering to a broader range of visitor interests and activities, contributing to the overarching goal of sustaining the natural environment while also enriching the visitor experience within national parks.
... We found that the elephants in this study displayed markedly fewer anxiety-related behaviours During, when there were no tourists or tourist interactions, indicating a reduction in short-term stress when lockdown restrictions were in place. This potentially indicates that tourism elicited anxiety above these baseline levels, and corresponds with elevated expressions of stress-related behaviour observed in Asian elephants (Ranaweerage et al., 2015), and wild barbary macaques (Maréchal et al., 2011) in response to tourism. Interestingly, SDBs were the highest following the reopening of the ATV, suggesting that the return of tourists was more anxiety-inducing than tourism prior to lockdown. ...
... Frontiers in Marine Science frontiersin.org Ranaweerage et al., 2015;Finneran et al., 2017). Observed D. pealeii alarm responses were transient and had similar movements as anti-predator behaviors observed in other squid species (Mather, 2010). ...
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Anthropogenic noise is now a prominent pollutant increasing in both terrestrial and marine environments. In the ocean, proliferating offshore windfarms, a key renewable energy source, are a prominent noise concern, as their pile driving construction is among the most intense anthropogenic sound sources. Yet, across taxa, there is little information of pile driving noise impacts on organismal fine-scale movement despite its key link to individual fitness. Here, we experimentally quantified the swimming behavior of an abundant squid species (Doryteuthis pealeii) of vital commercial and ecological importance in response to in situ pile driving activity on multiple temporal and spatial scales (thus exposed to differing received levels, or noise-doses). Pile driving induced energetically costly alarm-jetting behaviors in most (69%) individuals at received sound levels (in zero to peak) of 112-123 dB re 1 µm s⁻², levels similar to those measured at the kilometer scale from some wind farm construction areas. No responses were found at a comparison site with lower received sound levels. Persistence of swimming pattern changes during noise-induced alarm responses, a key metric addressing energetic effects, lasted up to 14 s and were significantly shorter in duration than similar movement changes caused by natural conspecific interactions. Despite observing dramatic behavioral changes in response to initial pile driving noise, there was no evidence of gait changes over an experiment day. These results demonstrate that pile driving disrupts squid fine-scale movements, but impacts are short-lived suggesting that offshore windfarm construction may minimally impact the energetics of this ecologically key taxon. However, further work is needed to assess potential behavioral and physiological impacts at higher noise levels.
... High levels of tourism and recreation have several deteriorating effects on wildlife species and related natural ecosystems (Castillo-Vizuete et al. 2021;Smith et al. 2021). For example, based on vehicle-based observations conducted in Southern Sri Lanka, vehicle noise, distance, tourist behaviour and time of the day disturb the feeding activity of free-ranging elephants (Ranaweerage et al. 2015). The physiological stress response of tigers to human disturbance has been studied by assessing the faecal glucocorticoid metabolite concentrations of the animals. ...
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The endangered Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus) is an endangered species among the conserved Chinese amphibians. Tourism-related pressures have increased for this species recently. The effect of tourism on the hatching rate of the target species was determined by experimentally observing the influences of different intensities of tourism disturbance on salamander in the Zhangjiajie Chinese Giant Salamander National Nature Reserve. Water quality factors (e.g. total nitrogen, total phosphorus, dissolved oxygen and Escherichia coli abundance) were analysed, and hatching rate was estimated. Results showed that high levels of tourism disturbance (500,000–1,200,000 visitors per year) had active effects on the hatching time and negative effects on the hatching rate. The prediction performance of artificial neural network models was validated by the low root mean square error values of 2.2539 and 3.2612 for the training and testing data and high determination coefficient values of 0.9732 and 0.9508 for the training and testing data, respectively. The potential for positive or negative feedback mechanisms in such relationships between tourists and wildlife highlights the importance of considering both sides of the complex interaction to find a balance between the development of tourism and wild animal protection.
... Los impactos causados a la fauna es otro ámbito de estudio, en el Parque Nacional Udawalawe se evaluó la perturbación causada por los turistas en los elefantes silvestres mediante la observación del comportamiento y el contacto con los turistas, midiendo cuatro comportamientos: alerta, miedo, estrés y agresión (Ranaweerage et al., 2015). También se ha estudiado la percepción de las comunidades aledañas a las AP's sobre la conservación de la flora y fauna en relación con el turismo, así como de los factores que influyen en la conservación de estos recursos y el desarrollo del turismo en base a estos (Mutanga et al., 2015), el método utilizado fueron los cuestionarios cerrados en comunidades en un radio de 10 kilómetros o menos de las AP's. ...
Thesis
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Tourist visitation in protected areas has experienced steady growth in recent decades. For countries that rely heavily on nature-based tourism, having high visitation statistics is synonymous with success, which is why the negative impacts generated by tourism are often minimized. The main objective of this study was to assess from different approaches the implications of tourism overcrowding in the conservation model of Costa Rica and particularly in Manuel Antonio National Park. Multiple research methods and techniques were applied from the mixed approach (surveys, Delphi, case study, literature review, spatial analysis, among others) that allowed to collect and analyze the information to answer the research questions. The results are organized in eight chapters: 1) Introduction, 2) Theoretical and methodological foundations, 3) Implications of nature-based tourism in Costa Rica from the perspective of Recreational Ecology, 4) Spatio-temporal patterns of tourist frequentation in the system of protected areas of Costa Rica, 5) Indicators of tourist overcrowding in protected areas and areas of influence, 6) Manuel Antonio National Park as a case study of tourism overcrowding, 7) Tourist behavior and dynamics of domestic tourism in times of COVID-19 and 8) Conclusions.