Andrew Paul Jacobson

Catawba College · Environment and Sustainability

1. Despite the ecological importance of the four extant species of Hyaenidae, and the threats they face globally, there has been no review of the nearly 100 years of published research on hyaenas, nor has there been a synthesis of management-related literature regarding these species. 2. We reviewed 907 studies on Hyaenidae, summarized broad temp...

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is an extinction risk assessment tool that has guided species conservation over the last five decades. However, as wildlife scientists and conservationists, we argue that its influence on the global conservation agenda can hinder effective species conservation efforts. Here, we review the limitations of the R...

Lions are one of the world’s most iconic species but are threatened with extinction. Developing effective range-wide conservation plans are crucial but hampered by the relative lack of knowledge on specific threats facing each population and the socio-political context for conservation. Here, we present a range-wide examination of the relative frag...

Climate change models often assume similar responses to temperatures across the range of a species, but local adaptation or phenotypic plasticity can lead plants and animals to respond differently to temperature in different parts of their range. To date, there have been few tests of this assumption at the scale of continents, so it is unclear if t...

Wilderness loss is one of the main threats to biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. The post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity proposes "retaining wilderness areas" in the first target of the 21 action-oriented targets for 2030. We conducted a global analysis of projected loss of wildernes...

The striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena) is an understudied large carnivore with no known historic range map. Knowledge of the past and present extent of its easternmost distribution beyond 85° east longitude is dubious. Through a comprehensive review of historical evidence and contemporary records, we investigated striped hyena presence in Bengal, i.e.,...

Aim Species distribution maps are essential for assessing extinction risk and guiding conservation efforts. However, most come sourced as expert‐drawn range maps with known issues of accuracy or are developed with overly complex modelling procedures. Thus, data‐driven alternatives that are accessible and reliable are a welcome addition to the spati...

Leading up to the Convention on Biological Diversity Conference of the Parties 15, there is momentum around setting bold conservation targets. Yet, it remains unclear how much of Earth's land area remains without significant human influence and where this land is located. We compare four recent global maps of human influences across Earth's land, A...

Species distribution maps are essential for assessing extinction risk and guiding conservation efforts. Here, we developed a data-driven, reproducible geospatial workflow to map species distributions and evaluate their conservation status consistent with the guidelines and criteria of the IUCN Red List. Our workflow follows five automated steps to...

Habitat loss and fragmentation due to human activities is the leading cause of the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Protected areas are the primary response to this challenge and are the cornerstone of biodiversity conservation efforts. Roughly 15% of land is currently protected although there is momentum to dramatically raise protected...

Protected areas are the cornerstone of in situ conservation and their effective management is critical for maintaining biodiversity in the long term. In East Africa (Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda) there are 1,776 protected areas (including 186 “strict” protected areas with IUCN management categories I through IV) covering more than 27...

Assessing the numbers and distribution of threatened species is a central challenge in conservation, often made difficult because the species of concern are rare and elusive. For some predators, this may be compounded by their being sparsely distributed over large areas. Such is the case with the cheetah Acinonyx jubatus. The IUCN Red List process...

Details of cheetah persecution data in Namibia

Overlap of cheetah distribution with the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA)

Additional detail on presence data and distribution mapping

Public data search methodology

Known cheetah lifespans in southern Africa

Relationship of cheetah presence locations with covariates i.e., human and livestock densities

Implementation of the Leslie Matrix model

Distribution of research and crowd sourced presence observations in the study area in southern Africa

Comparison of the cheetah distribution detailed here with that published by the IUCN

Farm characteristics where cheetah persecution occurred

Cheetah metapopulation data in South Africa

Large carnivores are a polarizing group of species that play an outsized role in relation to their number. They structure ecosystems and feature prominently in human culture. Yet, their place in a rapidly changing world is uncertain. The large carnivore guild in the five countries of East Africa, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda, is lar...

Establishing and maintaining protected areas (PAs) are key tools for biodiversity conservation. However, this approach is insufficient for many species, particularly those that are wide-ranging and sparse. The cheetah Acinonyx jubatus exemplifies such a species and faces extreme challenges to its survival. Here, we show that the global population i...

Significance Here, we compile and present the most comprehensive data available on cheetah distribution and status. Our analysis shows dramatic declines of cheetah across its distributional range. Most cheetah occur outside protected areas, where they are exposed to multiple threats, but there is little information on population status. Simulation...

The leopard’s (Panthera pardus) broad geographic range, remarkable adaptability, and secretive nature have contributed to a misconception that this species might not be severely threatened across its range. We find that not only are several subspecies and regional populations critically endangered but also the overall range loss is greater than the...

Historical knowledge and recent surveys attest that lions are declining across parts of Africa (1, 2). We applaud Bauer et al. (3) for assembling available counts because they motivate better monitoring and conservation support. Their own data, however, rejects their claims that lions are “declining everywhere, except in four southern countries” an...

Effective conservation planning relies on the accurate identification of anthropogenic land cover. However , accessing localized information can be difficult or impossible in developing countries. Additionally, global medium-resolution land use land cover datasets may be insufficient for conservation planning purposes at the scale of a country or s...

1. In dryland ecosystems, mobility is essential for both wildlife and people to access unpredictable and spatially heterogeneous resources, particularly in the face of climate change. Fences can prevent connectivity vital for this mobility. 2. There are recent calls for large-scale barrier fencing interventions to address human–wildlife conflict an...

Biodiversity hotspots understandably attract considerable conservation attention. However, deserts are rarely viewed as conservation priority areas, due to their relatively low productivity, yet these systems are home to unique species, adapted to harsh and highly variable environments. While global attention has been focused on hotspots, the world...

Packer et al. reported that fenced lion populations attain densities closer to carrying capacity than unfenced populations. However, fenced populations are often maintained above carrying capacity, and most are small. Many more lions are conserved per dollar invested in unfenced ecosystems, which avoid the ecological and economic costs of fencing.

The continued existence of large carnivores such as the lion (Panthera leo Linnaeus, 1758) outside of protected areas is uncertain. Such populations are the least studied and the most rapidly declining. Mozambique contains roughly 8% of Africa's lions, nearly half of which persist outside of protected areas. We estimated the distribution and abunda...

We define African savannahs as being those areas that receive between 300 and 1,500 mm of rain annually. This broad definition encompasses a variety of habitats. Thus defined, savannahs comprise 13.5 million km2 and encompass most of the present range of the African lion (Panthera leo). Dense human populations and extensive conversion of land to hu...

As the world's governments congregate for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), we call on them to address one of the greatest oversights in conservation in recent years: the neglect of desert ecosystems. Deserts cover 17% of the world's land mass and harbor surprisingly

Hawai’i has 25% of the United States’ federally listed endangered species and nearly 75% of the nation’s recorded extinctions. Although no such list or datasets exists for cultural and historical landmarks, these resources may be similarly threatened. Of the eight major Hawaiian Islands, Maui is the second largest and has the third largest populati...