Navinder J Singh

Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences | SLU · Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies

India, a mega-diverse country in terms of both biodiversity and people, is battling environmental problems on many fronts: chronic dependence on natural resources, dwindling ecosystem services, declining environmental quality, effects of climate change and a biodiversity crisis. We review the current focal areas and infrastructure for ecological re...

Conservation is particularly difficult to implement for “moving targets”, such as migratory species or landscapes subject to environmental change. Traditional conservation strategies involving static tools (eg protected areas that have fixed spatial boundaries) may be ineffective for managing species whose ranges are changing. This shortfall needs...

Understanding the ecology of animal movements is of fundamental biological interest and crucial for assisting spatia l management under variable environmental change scenarios. Recent research has highlighted the importance of quantifying individual variability in movement behavior and on understanding how these are generated by interactions betwee...

Animals can be caught in an “ecological trap” when they select for seemingly attractive habitats at the expense of their fitness. Such maladaptive behaviour is often a consequence of human induced rapid changes in animals’ natal environment such as building of energy and transportation infrastructure. We tested the ecological trap hypotheses for hu...

Animal migration has fascinated scientists and the public alike for centuries, yet migratory animals are facing diverse threats that could lead to their demise. The Anthropocene is characterised by the reality that humans are the dominant force on Earth, having manifold negative effects on biodiversity and ecosystem function. Considerable research...

Conserving biodiversity is a global imperative, yet our capacity to quantify and understand species occurrences has been limited. To help address this challenge, we develop a novel monitoring approach based on deep sequencing of airborne eDNA. When applied to a 34-year archive of weekly filters from an aerosol sampling station in northern Sweden, o...

The conservation and management of mobile species, populations and dynamic habitats, presents significant challenges since such species face diverse threats during various stages of their life cycle. Protected areas (PAs) are essential tools in conservation efforts, aiming to preserve native species and their habitats. However, larger mobile animal...

Foraging on crops by wild ungulates may create human–wildlife conflicts through reducing crop production. Ungulates interact with and within complex socio‐ecological systems, making the reduction of crop damage a challenging task. Aside from ungulate densities, crop damage is influenced by different drivers affecting ungulate foraging behaviour: fo...

Background: Despite centuries of research, debate remains on the scaling of metabolic rate to mass especially for intraspecific cases. The high variation of body mass within brown bears presents a unique opportunity to study the intraspecific effects of body mass on physiological variables. The amplitude of metabolic rate reduction in hibernators...

Instrumentation and sample collection for wildlife research and management may require chemical immobilisation of animals, which may entail physiological and behavioural effects on them. It is therefore important to evaluate the immobilisation protocols to reduce the risk of mortality and morbidity of the handled animals and their populations. Usin...

Climate change represents a growing ecological challenge. The (sub) arctic and boreal regions of the world experience the most rapid warming, presenting an excellent model system for studying how climate change affects mammals. Moose (Alces alces) are a particularly relevant model species with their circumpolar range. Population declines across the...

Differences in botanical diet compositions among a large number of moose faecal samples collected during winter correlated with the nutritional differences identified in the same samples (Mantel‐ r = 0.89, p = 0.001), but the nutritional differences were significantly smaller ( p < 0.001). Nutritional geometry revealed that moose mixed Scots pine P...

Population fluctuations are widespread across the animal kingdom, especially in the order Rodentia, which includes many globally important reservoir species for zoonotic pathogens. The implications of these fluctuations for zoonotic spillover remain poorly understood. Here, we report a global empirical analysis of data describing the linkages betwe...

Anthropogenic changes to land use drive concomitant changes in biodiversity, including that of the soil microbiota. However, it is not clear how increasing intensity of human disturbance is reflected in the soil microbial communities. To address this issue, we used amplicon sequencing to quantify the microbiota (bacteria and fungi) in the soil of f...

Gestation and lactation have high energetic requirements. Up to three-fourths of the gestation period in moose (Alces alces) overlaps with the food-scarce period in winter. During this period, moose deal with the limited forage resources available through hypometabolism with decreased heart rate and body temperature (Tb). Body temperature is also a...

Background Telomere length provides a physiological proxy for accumulated stress in animals. While there is a growing consensus over how telomere dynamics and their patterns are linked to life history variation and individual experience, knowledge on the impact of exposure to different stressors at a large spatial scale on telomere length is still...

A recent review of the management of hyperabundant macropods in Aus-tralia proposed that expanded professional shooting is likely to lead to better biodiversity and animal welfare outcomes. While the tenets of this general argument are sound, it overlooks one important issue for biodiversity and animal health and welfare: reliance on toxic lead-bas...

Pathogens might affect behavior of infected reservoir hosts and hence their trappability, which could bias population estimates of pathogen prevalence. In this study, we used snap-trapping data on Puumala orthohantavirus (PUUV)-infected (n = 1619) and noninfected (n = 6940) bank voles (Myodes glareolus) from five vole cycles, normally representing...

Wild ungulates are a major consumer of agricultural crops in human dominated landscapes. Across Europe, ungulate populations are leading to intensified human-wildlife conflicts. At the same time, ungulates play a vital role in the structuring and functioning of ecosystems, and are highly appreciated for recreational hunting. Thus, managers often fa...

Hunting is a widespread but often overlooked land-use activity, providing major benefits to society. Hunting takes place in most landscapes, yet it remains unclear which types of landscapes foster or dampen hunting-related services, and how hunting relates to other land uses. A better understanding of these relationships is key for sustainable land...

Contact between wild and domestic ungulates is increasing across rangelands, enabling disease co-transmission. Disease management is difficult given uncertainties in complex system behavior, limited empirical data, and logistical obstacles to interventions. We studied gastrointestinal nematode (GIN) transmission in a rangeland shared by both livest...

Environmental changes and their consequences on biodiversity are known to have far‐reaching effects on the resilience of animal populations and associated livelihoods around the world. To counteract negative demographic and economic effects on pastoralism, knowledge about the historical and current status of the environment is essential. In this st...

Partial migration, whereby a proportion of a population migrates between distinct seasonal ranges, is common throughout the animal kingdom. However, studies linking existing theoretical models of migration probability, with empirical data are lacking. The competitive release hypothesis for partial migration predicts that due to density-dependent ha...

Aim Animal migrations influence ecosystem structure, dynamics and persistence of predator and prey populations. The theory of migratory coupling postulates that aggregations of migrant prey can induce large‐scale synchronized movements in predators, and this coupling is consequential for the dynamics of ecological communities. The degree to which h...

Shared use of rangelands by livestock and wildlife can lead to disease transmission. To align agricultural livelihoods with wildlife conservation, a multipronged and interdisciplinary approach for disease management is needed, particularly in data‐limited situations with migratory hosts. Migratory wildlife and livestock can range over vast areas, a...

Ungulate browsing has been studied for several decades in the northern hemisphere. However, studies have mainly focused on just one or two ungulate species, while rarely contrasting the relative effects of summer and winter browsing. This limits our understanding of the dynamics and effects of browsing in landscapes where ungulate species diversity...

As global temperatures continue to rise, increases in the frequency and intensity of climatic extremes will likely outpace average temperature increases, and may have outsized impacts on biological populations. Moose (Alces alces) are adapted to cold weather and populations are declining at the southern edge of the species’ range. Moose therefore m...

With accelerated land conversion and global heating at northern latitudes, it becomes crucial to understand, how life histories of animals in extreme environments adapt to these changes. Animals may either adapt by adjusting foraging behavior or through physiological responses, including adjusting their energy metabolism or both. Until now, it has...

Conservation relies on cooperation among different interest groups and appropriate use of evidence to make decisions that benefit people and biodiversity. However, misplaced conservation occurs when cooperation and evidence are impeded by polarization and misinformation. This impedance influences actions that directly harm biodiversity, alienate pa...

Population sizes and species distributions of wild ungulates in Europe have increased during the past decades, and continue to do so. As a result, browsing pressure in forests is increasing and concerns about the effects of increasingly common multi-species deer communities on forestry are rising. However, we currently lack an understanding of how...

Optimal management of hunted species requires an understanding of the impacts of hunting on both individual animal and population levels. Recent technological advancements in biologging enable us to obtain increasingly detailed information from free-ranging animals, covering longer periods of time, and providing the data needed to assess such impac...

Most European ungulate species are increasing in numbers and expanding their range. For the management and monitoring of these species, 64% of European countries rely on indirect proxies of abundance (e.g., hunting bag statistics). With increasing ungulate numbers, data on ungulate-vehicle collisions (UVC) may provide an important and inexpensive,...

For the first author, the given and family name are mixed up.

The moose (Alces alces) is a dominant large mammalian herbivore in the world’s boreal zones. Moose exert significant browsing impacts on forest vegetation and are therefore often at the centre of wildlife-forestry conflicts. Consequently, understanding the drivers of their foraging behaviour is crucial for mitigating such conflicts. Management of m...

Spectacular long-distance migration has evolved repeatedly in animals enabling exploration of resources separated in time and space. In birds, these patterns are largely driven by seasonality, cost of migration, and asymmetries in competition leading most often to leap-frog migration, where northern breeding populations winter furthest to the south...

Over recent decades, ungulate populations across Europe have undergone a rapid recovery. While this constitutes a conservation success, there is increasing concern about their impacts on shared resources with humans. Understanding ungulate food choices is crucial for predicting such impacts. Numerous studies have focused on single species or commun...

In northern environments, the period of access to high-quality forage is limited, exerting strong selective pressure to optimize the timing of parturition. We analysed timing and variation in moose (Alces alces) parturition dates of 555 females at 18 study sites across 12° of latitude (56-68° N, 1350 km) in Sweden. We found evidence for a spatial m...

How animals respond to a changing environment is a key question in ecological research. Animals living at higher latitudes are exposed to pronounced seasonal differences in both climate and in resource availability. Endotherms living in those environments have the ability to maintain a constant high body temperature (Tb), over a wide range of ambie...

Microorganisms are essential constituents of ecosystems. To improve our understanding of how various factors shape microbial diversity and composition in nature it is important to study how microorganisms vary in space and time. Factors shaping microbial communities in ground level air have been surveyed in a limited number of studies, indicating t...

Här rapporterar vi vad som hänt under det elfte året i Nikkaluokta av totalt 23 GPS-märkta vuxna älgar mellan mars 2018 och 2019. Projektet fokuserar på älgarnas rörelse som vandringsbeteende, deras fördelning i landskapet, livsmiljöanvändning och aktivitet.

Functional explanations for loud calling in nocturnal primates include territorial or sexual advertisement, maintenance of cohesiveness, and group coordination. It is generally accepted that loud calls of lesser galagos (genus Galago) are used for territorial advertisement and long-distance spacing. Field studies suggest that they are uttered at du...

Abstract Gaining a better understanding of global environmental change is an important challenge for conserving biodiversity. Shifts in phenology are an important consequence of environmental change. Measuring phenology of different taxa simultaneously at the same spatial and temporal scale is necessary to study the effects of changes in phenology...

Sammanfattning I inlandet var upp mot 85 % (Gällivare) och 68 % (Junosuando) av de GPS-märkta älgarna vandringsälgar till skillnad mot älgarna i kustområdet Haparanda-Kalix där upp mot 72 % stationära. Som förväntat ser vi skillnader mellan olika älgindivider vad gäller hur långt de förflyttar sig, när de börjar och när de avslutar sina säsongsvand...

Sammanfattning Upp mot 84 % av de GPS-märkta älgarna var vandringsälgar och 14 % var stationära. Som förväntat ser vi skillnader mellan olika älgindivider vad gäller hur långt de förflyttar sig och när de börjar och avslutar sina säsongsvandringar. Medelavståndet mellan vinter- och sommarområdet var 30 km. Älgkorna vandrade längre än tjurarna. I me...

Stormarna Gudrun (2005) och Per (2007) ändrade skogens struktur och tillgång till ungskog och därmed föda för klövviltet i Växjöområdet. En central fråga i projektet var hur älg och rådjur utnyttjar landskapet under de åren som följer och om vi kan se att effekterna av foderfönstret som stormarna hade öppnat så småningom tonar ut. Med den här studi...

Mass mortality events in wildlife are a growing concern. Under conditions of rapid global change, opportunistic responses in bacterial commensals, triggered by environmental stressors, may be increasingly implicated in die‐offs. In 2015, over 200,000 saiga antelope died of hemorrhagic septicemia caused by the pathogen Pasteurella multocida serotype...

Prior to winter, heterotherms retain polyunsaturated fatty acids (“PUFA”), resulting in enhanced energy savings during hibernation, through deeper and longer torpor bouts. Hibernating bears exhibit a less dramatic reduction (2–5°C) in body temperature, but lower their metabolism to a degree close to that of small hibernators. We determined the lipi...

Degree of unsaturation represented by ratios of different fatty acids groups (“FA ratios”). Fatty acids compositions were determined in white adipose tissue (“WAT”), skeletal muscle (“Muscle”), and blood plasma (“Plasma”) from active (“summer”) and hibernating (“winter”) brown bears. Fatty acids groups are monounsaturated fatty acids (“MUFA”), poly...

Proportions – % of total glycerophospholipids (“GPL”) and sphingolipids (“SL”) – of different groups of GPL and SL. Proportions of ceramide (“Cer”), phosphatidyl-choline (“PC”), phosphatidyl-ethanolamine (“PE”), phosphatidyl-inositol (“PI”), phosphatidyl-serine (“PS”), and sphingomyelin (“SM”) were determined in white adipose tissue (“WAT”), skelet...

Arithmetic means (“Means”) and standard errors (“SE”) of proportions of specific fatty acids (“FA”) among saturated FA, monounsaturated FA or polyunsaturated FA in white adipose tissue (“WAT”), muscle tissue (“Muscle”) and blood plasma (“Plasma”) of bears during the summer active period (“Summer”) and in winter hibernation (“Winter”). Differences o...

Arithmetic means (“Means”) standard errors (“SE”) of concentrations (in mmol l-1) of specific fatty acids among total fatty acids in white adipose tissue (“WAT”), muscle tissue (“Muscle”) and blood plasma (“Plasma”) of bears during the summer active period (“Summer”) and in winter hibernation (“Winter”). Sample sizes used in the linear mixed-effect...

Proportions of triacylglycerides (“TG”) – % of total TG – of different carbon chain lengths, and their respective fatty acid composition. Proportions of different TGs were determined in white adipose tissue (“WAT”), skeletal muscle (“Muscle”), and blood plasma (“Plasma”) of active (“summer”) and hibernating (“winter”) brown bears. Error bars repres...

Pellet counts are widely used to monitor ungulates but rely on the assumption that pellets of different species are correctly identified in the field. Recent studies question this assumption using DNA barcoding techniques to check field identification rates. For Europe, which is undergoing a rapid shift towards more diverse ungulate assemblages, su...

Här rapporterar vi vad som hänt under det tionde året i Nikkaluokta av totalt 23 GPSmärkta vuxna älgar mellan mars 2017 och 2018. Projektet fokuserar på älgarnas rörelse som vandringsbeteende, deras fördelning i landskapet, livsmiljöanvändning och aktivitet. Som bilaga redovisas positionerna under fyra tidpunkter under året (den 15:e varje månad).

Här rapporterar vi vad som hänt i Växjö av totalt 17 GPS-märkta vuxna älgkor och de sex rådjur som märktes i februari och mars 2017. Årsrapporten omfattar perioden mars 2017 och mars 2018. Projektet fokuserar på älgarnas rörelse, deras fördelning i landskapet, aktivitet, reproduktion och kalvöverlevnad. För rådjuren tittade vi på hemområdesstorlek,...

Postmortem body temperature is used to estimate time of death in humans, but the available models are not validated for most nonhuman species. Here, we report that cooling in an adult female moose ( Alces alces) equipped with a rumen temperature monitor was extremely slow, with a rumen temperature of 27-28 C as late as 40 h postmortem.

Här rapporterar vi vad som hänt under det andra året i Svappavaara av totalt 16 GPSmärkta vuxna älgar mellan mars 2017 och mars 2018. Projektet fokuserar på älgarnas rörelse som vandringsbeteende, deras fördelning i landskapet och aktivitet. Som bilaga redovisas positionerna under tolv tidpunkter under året (den 15:e varje månad).

Utöver älgarna i de nämnda koncentrationsområdena finns ytterligare älgar märkta i Nikkaluoktaområdet i Kiruna och Gällivare kommuner som en del i ett projekt om älgar i fjällmiljö som numera är helfinansierat av SLU. Projektet har pågått sen 2008. Sedan 2009 finns också studieområden med individmärkta älgar i södra Sverige (Växjö - Kronobergs län;...

Large carnivores can be a key factor in shaping their ungulate prey's behavior, which may affect lower trophic levels. While most studies on trade-offs between food acquisition and risk avoidance by ungulate prey species have been conducted in areas with limited human impact, carnivores are now increasingly returning to highly anthropogenic landsca...

Restrictions on roaming Until the past century or so, the movement of wild animals was relatively unrestricted, and their travels contributed substantially to ecological processes. As humans have increasingly altered natural habitats, natural animal movements have been restricted. Tucker et al. examined GPS locations for more than 50 species. In ge...

In 2015, more than 200,000 saiga antelopes died in 3 weeks in central Kazakhstan. The proximate cause of death is confirmed as hemorrhagic septicemia caused by the bacterium Pasteurella multocida type B, based on multiple strands of evidence. Statistical modeling suggests that there was unusually high relative humidity and temperature in the days l...

Across the northern hemisphere, land use changes and, possibly, warmer winters are leading to more abundant and diverse ungulate communities causing increased socioeconomic and ecological consequences. Reliable population estimates are crucial for sustainable management, but it is currently unclear which monitoring method is most suitable to track...

Lead poisoning of animals due to ingestion of fragments from lead-based ammunition in carcasses and offal of shot wildlife is acknowledged globally and raises great concerns about potential behavioral effects leading to increased mortality risks. Based on analyses of tracking data, we found that even sub-lethal lead concentrations in blood (25 ppb,...

Large populations of migratory birds cross the Himalayas during their annual migrations through the Central Asian Flyway, and Himalayan wetlands are critical habitats for many bird species (Namgail et al., 2009; Namgail & Yom-Tov, 2009). In the Ladakh region of the Himalayas, wetlands are important summer breeding grounds for waterbirds and other s...

Spatiotemporal reindeer population fluctuations are a result of multiple factors that working in concert affecting the structure and functioning of many Arctic and Sub-Arctic ecosystems. We investigated the population dynamics of Swedish semi-domestic reindeer from 1945 to 2012 at the reindeer herding district-level (Sameby) to identify possible po...

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/eap.1544/full Quantification of rates and patterns of community dynamics is central for understanding the organization and function of ecosystems. These insights may support a greater empirical understanding of ecological resilience, and the application of resilience concepts toward ecosystem management....

An assessment of historical distribution patterns and potential reintroduction sites is important for reducing the risk of reintroduction failure of endangered species. The saiga antelope, Saiga tatarica, was extirpated in the mid-20th century in China. A captive population was established in the Wuwei Endangered Wildlife Breeding Centre (WEWBC) in...

Habitat selection, flight height and movement patterns (including migration) were studied during 2011–15 for golden eagles in northern Sweden that had been marked with GPS transmitters. Habitat selection analyses confirmed earlier results that eagles preferred clear-cuts and closed-canopy forest while, for example, young forest, mires and wetlands...

The demographic consequences of changes in habitat use driven by human modification of landscape, and/or changes in climate, are important for any species. We investigated habitat–performance relationships in a declining island population of a large mammal, the moose (Alces alces), in an environment that is predator-free but dominated by humans. We...

Sexual segregation, the tendency to seasonally live in groups comprised of separate sexes, is widespread in sexually dimorphic polygynous ungulates. The causes for such segregation are still being studied and debated to arrive at a universal explanation. We assessed sexual segregation in the markhor, Capra falconeri-a dimorphic mountain ungulate in...