Matt W Hayward

University of Newcastle Australia · School of Environmental and Life Sciences

Camera traps are widely used in wildlife research and monitoring, so it is imperative to understand their strengths, limitations, and potential for increasing impact. We investigated a decade of use of wildlife cameras (2012–2022) with a case study on Australian terrestrial vertebrates using a multifaceted approach. We (i) synthesised information...

The 2019–2020 Black Summer bushfires are an example of Australia’s climate-induced, changing fire regimes, where flora and fauna suffer both direct and indirect impacts as the result of large fires. The eastern pygmy possum (Cercartetus nanus) is a species that may be affected and, although its general ecology is well understood, there is limited k...

The Pacific Islands region is home to several of the world's biodiversity hotspots, yet its unique flora and fauna are under threat because of biological invasions. These invasions are likely to proliferate as human activity increases and large‐scale natural disturbances unfold, exacerbated by climate change. Remote sensing data and techniques prov...

The rapid decline of global biodiversity has engendered renewed debate about the social, economic, and political factors contributing to it. Specifically, there is little understanding of the role that political ideology within a country (e.g., nationalism, conservatism, socialism) plays in determining biodiversity outcomes. We used negative binomi...

Otters are constrained to aquatic ecosystems where they often perform the role of “apex” predators. Effective conservation of otters requires sufficient knowledge of their dietary resources. Our aim was to determine the diet of smooth-coated otter in the Moyar River, Western Ghats, to ensure they have sufficient nutritional resources for their co...

Amphibians are among the most threatened vertebrate taxa globally. Their global decline necessitates effective conservation actions to bolster populations across both the larval and adult life stages. Constructing man-made ponds is one such action proven to enhance reproduction in pond-breeding amphibians. However, to achieve successful conservatio...

Despite their importance for understanding consumer‐resource dynamics, the dietary responses of large terrestrial predators to variations in prey richness and competition pressure are unclear. While a greater predator selectivity along with increasing prey abundance would be expected under an optimal foraging scenario, there is some evidence that p...

The threatened fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus) is an elusive and medium-sized cat that is adapted to mangroves, swamps, wetlands and riverine habitats. A close look at the literature indicates that fishing cats are piscivorous; however, this is based on very few studies. Understanding the patterns of resource utilisation by species is crucial...

The Coyote (Canis latrans) is one of the most studied species in North America with at least 445 papers on its diet alone. While this research has yielded excellent reviews of what coyotes eat, it has been inadequate to draw deeper conclusions because no synthesis to date has considered prey availability. We accounted for prey availability by inves...

Wide-ranging carnivores experience tradeoffs between dynamic resource availabilities and heterogeneous risks from humans, with consequences for their ecological function and conservation outcomes. Yet, research investigating these tradeoffs across large carnivore distributions is rare. We assessed how resource availability and anthropogenic risks i...

The size of the home range of a mammal is affected by numerous factors. However, in the normally solitary, but polygynous, Leopard (Panthera pardus), home range size and maintenance is complicated by their transitory social grouping behavior, which is dependent on life history stage and/or reproductive status. In addition, the necessity to avoid co...

The threatened fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus) is an elusive and medium-sized cat that is adapted to mangroves, swamps, wetlands, and riverine habitats. A close look at the literature indicates that fishing cats are piscivorous, however this is based on very few studies. Understanding the patterns of resource utilisation by species is crucial...

Biodiversity monitoring is crucial for effective conservation efforts. Effective monitoring allows managers to determine the status and trends of biodiversity, as well as the success of conservation actions. The population of the Broad-toothed Rats (Mastacomys fuscus) in the Barrington Tops National Park New South Wales, Australia has been monitore...

The unprecedented rate of global amphibian decline is attributed to The Anthropocene, with human actions triggering the Sixth Mass Extinction Event. Amphibians have suffered some of the most extreme declines, and their lack of response to conservation actions may reflect challenges faced by taxa that exhibit biphasic life histories. There is an urg...

Predators can induce behavioral changes in prey that influence vigilance, grouping patterns, and space use, and these can ultimately affect prey demography and trophic interactions. Consequently, prey must respond to the risk of predation, but little is known about the features that drive the spatial responses of prey species to predators. We teste...

The status of many amphibian populations remains unclear due to undetected declines driven by disease and difficulties in obtaining accurate population estimates. Here, we used genome complexity reduction-based sequencing technology to study the poorly understood Littlejohn’s treefrog, Litoria littlejohni across its fragmented distribution in easte...

Since 1970, there has been an overall decline in wildlife populations in the order of 52%. Freshwater species populations have declined by 76%; species populations in Central and South America have declined by 83%; and in the Indo-Pacific by 67%. These are often not complete extinctions, but large declines in the numbers of animals in each species,...

Spatial patterns of and competition for resources by territorial carnivores are typically explained by two hypotheses: 1) the territorial defence hypothesis and 2) the searching efficiency hypothesis. According to the territorial defence hypothesis, when food resources are abundant, carnivore densities will be high and home ranges small. In additio...

Unsustainable hunting, both illegal and legal, has led to the extirpation of many species. In the last 35 years giraffe Giraffa spp. populations have declined precipitously, with extinctions documented in seven African countries. Amongst the various reasons for these population declines, poaching is believed to play an important role in some areas....

The Australian marsupial fauna has been devastated in the past 250 years, mainly due to impacts from invasive mammalian predators (cats and foxes), although other threats such as invasive herbivores, habitat loss and fragmentation, changes to fire regimes, and now climate change have played a role. The profound and ongoing impact of invasive predat...

Context Shipping impacts are a major environmental concern that can affect the behaviour and health of marine mammals and fishes. The potential impacts of shipping within marine parks is rarely considered during the planning process. Aims We assessed the areal disturbance footprint of shipping around Australia, its overlap with marine parks, and kn...

Negative interactions between humans and wildlife (i.e. those presenting risks to human security or private property) can trigger retaliation and potential human-wildlife conflict (HWC). The nature and strength of these human responses may depend on previous interactions with wildlife and can be shaped by landscape conditions. However, the ways in...

The status of many amphibian populations remains unclear due to undetected declines driven by disease and difficulties in obtaining accurate population estimates. Here, we used genetic data (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms) to investigate Australia’s poorly understood Littlejohn’s treefrog , Litoria littlejohni across its fragmented distribution. W...

Investigating how the population density of a species changes over time is an integral step in determining whether that species is stable or needs assistance from conservation managers. The short-eared possum (Trichosurus caninus) is a species that has been poorly studied with only one previous population density estimate. Short-eared possums were...

Most natural ecosystems contain animals feeding on many different types of food, but it is difficult to predict what will be eaten when food availabilities change. We present a method that estimates food preference over many study sites, even when number of food types vary widely from site to site. Sampling variation is estimated using bootstrappin...

Aim Ongoing global changes can lead to the expansion of species' geographical range. Exploring the drivers of the successful ongoing expansion of the golden jackal across Europe is essential to understand the species' trophic ecology. We analysed which climatic and environmental factors affected the dietary composition of golden jackals and compare...

Conservation managers cannot manage what they don’t know about, yet our existing biodiversity monitoring is idiosyncratic and small in scale. One of Australia’s commitments to the Convention for Biological Diversity in 2015 was the creation of a national biodiversity monitoring programme. This has not yet occurred despite the urgent need to monitor...

When seeking prey, predators adaptively deploy strategies coarsely divided into sit-and-wait, sit-and-pursue, or active hunting modes. Though the hunting modes of many predators have been extensively studied, the implications of the hunting modes of human (Homo sapiens) predation are not yet fully understood. We conducted an extensive literature re...

Human-wildlife conflicts may be unintended consequences of conservation successes and rewilding, and could be exacerbated where baselines around biodiversity have shifted. Mediating conflict is a conservation priority due to its socio-economic impacts and the consequences negative perceptions have for conservation outcomes. We document locally nove...

Large (>15 kg) carnivores, namely lions (Panthera leo ), leopards (Panthera pardus ), cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus), African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus ), spotted (Crocuta crocuta) and brown hyaenas (Parahyaena brunnea ), have been reintroduced to 16 private- and state-owned reserves in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Objectives behind these r...

Rates at which predators encounter, hunt and kill prey are influenced by, among other things, the intrinsic condition of prey. Diseases can considerably compromise body condition, potentially weakening ability of afflicted prey to avoid predation. Understanding predator–prey dynamics is particularly important when both species are threatened, as is...

Recent research has highlighted several influential roles that humans play in ecosystems, including that of a superpredator, hyperkeystone species, and niche constructor. This work has begun to describe the Eltonian niche of humans, which encompasses humanity's cumulative ecological and evolutionary roles in trophic systems. However, we lack a unif...

The squirrel glider (Petaurus norfolcensis) is a threatened, gliding marsupial that persists in fragmented landscapes despite its restricted capacity to cross large gaps. As measures to maintain and/or restore suitable habitat depend on knowledge about the species' ecological requirements, we investigated the area used by squirrel gliders in an urb...

The common chimpanzee Pan troglodytes is the closest extant relative of modern humans and is often used as a model organism to help understand prehistoric human behavior and ecology. Originally presumed herbivorous, chimpanzees have been observed hunting 24 species of birds, ungulates, rodents, and other primates, using an array of techniques from...

Ecologists have long had a "love-hate" relationship with the niche concept. Sometimes referred to as a term best left undefined, the niche concept nonetheless spans ecology. Deeply rooted in the Darwinian struggle for survival , "niche" has been a core, although slippery, idea in ecology since its origins. What ecologists mean by niche has changed...

While the negative impacts of dam construction on downstream river stretches and riparian forests are well studied, the status of wildlife presence and persistence in upstream reservoir deltas is virtually unknown. We investigated the drivers of terrestrial mammal occupancy and persistence along riparian forests of Koyna reservoir in western India...

Supplementary data including all the codes and supporting tables and figures.

Chimpanzees Pan troglodytes are the closest extant relative of modern humans, and are often used as a model organism to help understand prehistoric human behavior and ecology. Originally presumed herbivorous, chimpanzees have been observed hunting 24 species of birds, ungulates, rodents, monkeys, and other primates, using an array of techniques fro...

Apex predators play a critical role in maintaining the health of ecosystems but are highly susceptible to habitat degradation and loss caused by land-use changes, and to anthropogenic mortality. The leopard Panthera pardus is the last free-roaming large carnivore in the Western Cape province, South Africa. During 2011–2015, we carried out a camera-...

The parma wallaby (Notomacropus parma Waterhouse, 1846) is a small macropodid marsupial found in the temperate wet forests of south-eastern Australia. It is one of the most understudied critical weight range mammals in Australia, with the only detailed published ecological research being conducted in the 1970s. This chapter reports on the inadequac...

The southern and northern heath frogs (Litoria watsoni and Litoria littlejohni) are sister treefrog species experiencing an enigmatic decline across large parts of their range. Their naturally low abundance, uncommon habit of breeding sporadically throughout the year, and restriction to high elevations (> 100 m), make these species some of the most...

Article impact statement: Combining native and non‐native species to evaluate biodiversity is overly simplistic and may undermine the conservation of ecosystems.

Understanding traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyles in our modern world is fundamental to our understanding of their viability, as well as the role of humans as predators in structuring ecosystems. Here, we examine the factors that drive prey preferences of modern hunter-gatherer people by reviewing 85 published studies from 161 tropical, temperat...

In the process of avoiding predation, prey are faced with potentially fitness‐compromising trade‐offs that have implications for their survival and reproduction. The nature and strength of these non‐consumptive effects at the population level can be equivalent, or even greater, than consumptive effects. Many prey species have evolved defence mechan...

Conservation translocations, including reintroductions, are practices that are vital to restoring biodiversity and ecosystem function within conservation schemes globally. Sadly, population translocations have had a poor success rate historically. At a time where biodiversity is constantly decreasing, improving translocation success is vital for fu...

Red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) range within the United Kingdom (UK) has retracted significantly due to the spread of an Invasive Alien Species, the North American Eastern grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis). Where grey squirrels are sympatric, red squirrel populations decline through inter-specific competition and squirrelpox virus (SQPV) infecti...

Since the introduction of the term “rewilding” in 1998, several definitions have been proposed, sparking debate around terminology and how (or if) rewilding differs from restoration. Many papers attempt to distinguish between the two terms through a series of descriptive attributes: historic baselines, landscape‐driven transformation, ongoing human...

• Animals should adapt their foraging habits, changing their dietary breadth in response to variation in the richness and availability of food resources. Understanding how species modify their dietary breadth according to variation in resource richness would support predictions of their responses to environmental changes that alter prey communities...

Surveillance of animal movements using electronic tags (i.e., biotelemetry) has emerged as an essential tool for both basic and applied ecological research and monitoring. Advances in animal tracking are occurring simultaneously with changes to technology, in an evolving global scientific culture that increasingly promotes data sharing and transpar...

“Compassionate Conservation” is an emerging movement within conservation science that is gaining attention through its promotion of “ethical” conservation practices that place empathy and compassion and the moral principles of “first, do no harm” and “individuals matter” at the forefront of conservation practice. We have articulated elsewhere how C...

While constrained by endogenous rhythms, morphology and ecology, animals may still exhibit flexible activity patterns in response to risk. Temporal avoidance of interspecific aggression can enable access to resources without spatial exclusion. Apex predators, including humans, can affect mesopredator activity patterns. Human context might also modi...

Lion predation on cattle causes severe human–wildlife conflict that results in retaliatory persecution throughout the lion’s geographic range. Cattle closely resemble the body size, shape, and herding patterns of preferred lion prey species. We studied cattle depredation patterns in Botswana’s Okavango Delta and tested whether lions exhibited speci...

Understanding the mechanisms facilitating coexistence within species assemblages is a key consideration for conservation as intact assemblages are necessary for maintaining full ecosystem function. The African large predator guild represents one of the few remaining functionally intact large predator assemblages on Earth, and as such, represents a...

Context: The success of conservation fences at protecting reintroduced populations of threatened mammals from introduced predators has prompted an increase in the number and extent of fenced exclosures. Excluding introduced species from within conservation fences could also benefit components of in situ faunal assemblages that are prey for introduc...

Concern for megafauna is increasing among scientists and non-scientists. Many studies have emphasized that megafauna play prominent ecological roles and provide important ecosystem services to humanity. But, what precisely are ‘megafauna’? Here, we critically assess the concept of megafauna and propose a goal-oriented framework for megafaunal resea...

Scent marking, where individuals deposit signals on objects in the environment, is a common form of chemical signalling in mammals and is thought to play a critical role in maintaining social organization within wide-ranging, spatially dispersed populations. Senders, however, can incur scent-marking costs through mark production, time investment in...

The 'Compassionate Conservation' movement is gaining momentum through its promotion of 'ethical' conservation practices based on self-proclaimed principles of 'first-do-no-harm' and 'individuals matter'. We argue that the tenets of 'Compassionate Conservation' are ideological-that is, they are not scientifically proven to improve conservation outco...

Encounters between individuals can have implications for a range of processes, including disease transmission, information transfer and competition. For large carnivores, difficulties in directly observing individuals and historical hardware limitations of GPS collars mean that relatively little is known of the spatio‐temporal factors contributing...

In face of a changing climate, it is of global importance to understand the way biodiversity utilizes riparian areas – that often act as refuges from climatic extremes. Our understanding of mammalian species assemblages and space-use patterns throughout riparian areas is limited. To test the role that riparian habitat structure plays in determining...

Introducing consumptive and non-consumptive effects into food webs can have profound effects on individuals, populations and communities. Consequently, the deliberate use of predation and/or fear of predation is an emerging technique for controlling wildlife. Many now advocate for the intentional use of large carnivores and livestock guardian dogs...

Compassionate conservation focuses on 4 tenets: first, do no harm; individuals matter; inclusivity of individual animals; and peaceful coexistence between humans and animals. Recently, compassionate conservation has been promoted as an alternative to conventional conservation philosophy. We believe examples presented by compassionate conservationis...

Protected areas are critical to conservation efforts in the face of rapid biodiversity declines [ 1 ]. Yet the resources for conservation are often limited and shared amongst many competing priorities [ 2 ]. As a consequence, even basic monitoring surveys are absent within most protected areas [ 3 ]. Although a range of wildlife monitoring methods...