Nida Al-Fulaij

People's Trust for Endangered Species · Conservation Research

Hazel dormice (Muscardinus avellanarius) have undergone a long decline in Britain and monitoring of populations in established woodlands shows a continuing decline in abundance. Between 2000 and 2022, analysis of the National Dormouse Monitoring Programme (NDMP) suggests the population has decreased by 70 per cent. Under IUCN Red List criteria, dor...

Improving the effectiveness of conservation practice requires better use of evidence. Since 2004, researchers from the Conservation Evidence group (University of Cambridge) have engaged with over 1100 named practitioners, policymakers, funders and other academics from across the world to identify needs and develop a range of principles, tools and r...

https://www.stateofnature.org.uk/

Long‐term data are beneficial for monitoring the conservation status of species. Assessments of population change over recent periods of fixed duration will, however, be subject to ‘shifting baselines’, where the accepted norm for the population at the start of the period already represents a reduction from historical levels. International Union fo...

The impact of factors such as density dependence, food availability and weather are known to be important for predicting population change in a wide range of species. However, a challenge in ecology is understanding the contributory and interactive role of these drivers on populations. This is necessary to design effective conservation and manageme...

Terrestrial anurans, with their typically short limbs, heavy-set bodies and absent claws or toe pads are incongruous tree climbers, but even occasional arboreal locomotion could offer substantial advantages for evading predators or accessing new shelter or food resources. Despite recent interest, arboreal behaviour remains rarely and unsystematical...

It is important to monitor species populations to identify changes in Red List assessment, whether increases from conservation or continued declines. This can be more difficult when there are multiple modelling options available. Using data from the National Dormouse Monitoring Programme, provided by the People’s Trust for Endangered Species, we ex...

The People's Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) owns a private woodland on the Isle of Wight (IoW) that is managed predominantly for woodland bats, Red Squirrels and Hazel Dormice. Dormice are considered to be widespread across the island in suitable habitat. The IoW is different from the mainland as it has no wild deer species. PTES has been moni...

Evidence-based approaches are key for underpinning effective conservation practice, but major gaps in the evidence of the effectiveness of interventions limit their use. Conservation practitioners could make major contributions to filling these gaps but often lack the time, funding, or capacity to do so properly. Many funders target the delivery of...

Terrestrial anurans, with their typically short limbs, heavy-set bodies and absent claws or toe pads are incongruous tree climbers, but even occasional arboreal locomotion could offer substantial advantages for evading predators or accessing new shelter or food resources. Despite recent interest, arboreal behaviour remains rarely and unsystematical...

Hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus) in Britain have undergone a long historic decline, but differences between urban and rural populations are becoming increasingly apparent. In urban areas, the picture is of a stable population that might be recovering, highlighting the importance of gardens and green spaces, and local action, in ensuring a future fo...

Hazel dormice, Muscardinus avellanarius, are the subject of one of the longest-running monitoring programmes of any British mammal. The 29-year old programme currently includes counts of dormice at several hundred woodland sites each year across England and Wales. Nationally, the population has declined by a half since 2000, yet at some sites, d...

Clear, accessible, objective metrics of species status are critical to communicate the state of biodiversity and to measure progress towards biodiversity targets. However, the population data underpinning current species status metrics is often highly skewed towards particular taxonomic groups such as birds, butterflies and mammals, primarily due t...

• Although strictly protected, populations of the hazel dormouse Muscardinus avellanarius in the UK declined by 72% from 1993 to 2014. Using National Dormouse Monitoring Programme data from 300 sites throughout England and Wales, we investigated variation in hazel dormouse population status (expressed as Indices of Abundance, Breeding, and populati...

In order to conserve threatened species, knowledge of the status, trends and trajectories of populations is required. Co‐ordinating collection of these data is challenging, especially for inconspicuous species such as the hazel dormouse Muscardinus avellanarius . The UK National Dormouse Monitoring Programme ( NDMP ) is comprised of nest box record...

The hazel dormouse Muscardinus avellanarius has a wide distribution in Europe. Within its range the species can be relatively common, but in parts of its northern range (e.g. UK, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark) populations are declining. The hazel dormouse is listed in the Annex IV of the EU Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC and, therefore, this species...

Developing protocols for threatened invertebrates is often challenging, because they are not only rare but also elusive. This is the case with the stag beetle ( Lucanus cervus ), a protected and flagship species for the saproxylic beetle fauna in Europe. We applied a standard transect walk at a European scale (8 countries, 29 transects) to test its...

Action to reduce anthropogenic impact on the environment and species within it will be most effective when targeted towards activities that have the greatest impact on biodiversity. To do this effectively we need to better understand the relative importance of different activities and how they drive changes in species' populations. Here, we present...

Results of the drivers of change assessment for each higher taxonomic group. (XLSX)

Species assessments. (XLSX)

Distribution of Strength of Impacts scores for each broad driver of change. Distribution of Strength of Impact scores for each broad driver of change across all species assessed in the review. The number of instances that the driver was listed in the review is shown in brackets. The distribution of Strength of Evidence scores show a similar pattern...

Comparison of different options for weighting species in overall analysis. The percent of absolute impact on species attributable to each Broad driver of change that accounted for two percent of absolute impact or greater, comparing the three options considered for weighting Strength of Impact scores. (TIF)

Results of drivers of change assessment for each taxonomic group. Positive (light green) and Negative (dark blue) impact for each broad driver of change accounting for two percent or more of the total in absolute terms, ordered by absolute impact, by taxonomic group. Impact is shown as a percent of the impact on that group, i.e. absolute impact sum...

Results of the drivers of change assessment for all species. (XLSX)

Characteristics of the species assessments. Boxplots showing the distribution of a) Strength of Evidence scores, b) Absolute strength of Impact scores (both assessed on a 12 point scale) allocated to each instance of each driver of change listed in the species assessments and c) the number of broad drivers listed per species. For each boxplot the b...

Relationship between population change and the assessed impact of drivers of change. Relationship between a species’ recent population change (~1970–2012) and the net sum of the impact for all the drivers listed for that species, taking the sign of each impact into account. Only taxonomic groups with comparable population change information (change...

Materials and Methods. (DOCX)

Results of the drivers of change assessment for each taxonomic group. (XLSX)

Assessment of the influence of low quality evidence in the overall analysis. The percentage of absolute impact on species attributable to each broad driver of change, either using all evidence or using only medium and high quality evidence (Strength of Evidence scores of five or above). Broad drivers accounting for two percent of absolute impact or...

We describe the development of two complementary priority species indicators (PSIs) to help the UK to report progress towards Aichi target 12 on the status of known threatened species. Based on species identified as national conservation priorities, the indicators present average changes in (i) 213 species for which trends in relative abundance are...

In 2012 the 1st European Stag Beetle Survey was launched. Eight countries have joined the study: Belgium, United Kingdom, Poland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Slovenia. The aims were: 1. To find a method standardization with application at pan-European scale for the monitoring of stag beetles using transects. 2. To obtain information on th...

1. The European stag beetle, Lucanus cervus, is thought to be widely distributed across its range, but a detailed description of its occurrence is lacking. 2. Researchers in 41 countries were contacted and information sought on various life history characteristics of the insect. Data on adult body size were collected from seven countries. 3. Habita...