William N. S. Arlidge

Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries | IGB · Fish Biology, Fisheries and Aquaculture

Efforts to conserve biodiversity comprise a patchwork of international goals, national-level plans, and local interventions that, overall, are failing. We discuss the potential utility of applying the mitigation hierarchy, widely used during economic development activities, to all negative human impacts on biodiversity. Evaluating all biodiversity...

Economic activities in the ocean (that is, the ‘blue economy’) provide value to society, yet also jeopardize marine ecosystems. For example, fisheries are an essential source of income and food security for billions of people, yet bycatch poses a major threat to marine biodiversity, creating trade-offs between economic growth and biodiversity conse...

It is well established that the decisions that we make can be strongly influenced by the behaviour of others. However, testing how social influence can lead to non-compliance with conservation rules during an individual's decision-making process has received little research attention. We synthesise advances in understanding of conformity and rule-b...

Recent population recovery of many pinniped species (seals, sea lions, walrus) is a conservation success. However, pinniped population recovery combined with increasing global fisheries operations is leading to increased conflicts between pinnipeds and fisheries. This human-wildlife conflict threatens pinniped conservation outcomes and may impose d...

The effectiveness of behavioural interventions in conservation often depends on local resource users' underlying social interactions. However, it remains unclear to what extent differences in related topics of information shared between resource users can alter network structure—holding implications for information flows and the spread of behaviour...

Biodiversity conservation work can be challenging but rewarding, and both aspects have potential consequences for conservationists’ mental health. Yet, little is known about patterns of mental health among conservationists and its associated workplace protective and risk factors. A better understanding might help improve working conditions, support...

Workplaces can be sources of both stress and support, affecting employees' mental health and productivity. Yet, little research has investigated variability in workplace risk factors for poor mental health in conservation. We aimed to explore how patterns of psychological distress—a state of emotional disturbance—and associated workplace risk facto...

The global recovery of pinniped populations is a conservation success. However, pinniped population recovery has increased human-wildlife conflict with fisheries, an issue often reported and requiring management, but one that lacks global synthesis. We conduct a meta-analysis to estimate the impacts of operational interactions (specifically, lost c...

Biodiversity conservation work can be challenging but rewarding, with potential consequences for conservationists’ mental health. Yet, little is known about patterns of mental health among conservationists and its associated protective and risk factors. A better understanding may help improve working conditions, supporting conservationists’ job sat...

In the face of unprecedented biodiversity loss, the belief that conservation goals can be met could play an important role in ensuring they are fulfilled. We asked conservationists how optimistic they felt about key biodiversity outcomes over the next 10 years; 2341 people familiar with conservation in 144 countries responded. Respondents expressed...

Goals play important roles in people's lives because they focus attention, mobilize effort, and sustain motivation. Understanding conservationists’ satisfaction with goal progress may provide insights into real‐world environmental trends and flag risks to their well‐being and motivation. We asked 2694 conservationists working globally how satisfied...

Biodiversity conservation work can be challenging but rewarding, with potential consequences for conservationists’ mental health. Yet, little is known about patterns of mental health among conservationists and its associated protective and risk factors. A better understanding can help improve working conditions, supporting conservationists’ job sat...

Global commitments prioritize protection of wildlife and improvements to human wellbeing. Local disconnects in these commitments are rarely acknowledged—or their implications assessed—preventing the development of effective solutions. National and international efforts to protect marine mammals along South America's west coast have contributed to s...

Rules form an important part of our everyday lives. Here we explore the role of social influence in rule-breaking. In particular, we identify some of the cognitive mechanisms underlying rule-breaking and propose approaches for how they can be scaled up to the level of groups or crowds to better understand the emergence of collective rule-breaking....

The new global biodiversity framework (GBF) being developed under the Convention on Biological Diversity must drive action to reverse the ongoing decline of the Earth's biodiversity. Explicit, measurable goals that specify the outcomes we want to achieve are needed to set the course for this action. However, the current draft goals and targets fail...

The upcoming Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting, and adoption of the new Global Biodiversity Framework, represent an opportunity to transform humanity's relationship with nature. Restoring nature while meeting human needs requires a bold vision, including mainstreaming biodiversity conservation in society. We present a framework that...

The effectiveness of biodiversity conservation interventions is often dependent on local resource users' underlying social interactions. However, it remains unclear how fine-scale differences in information shared between resource users can influence network structure and the success of behavior-change interventions. Using network null models that...

The effectiveness of biodiversity conservation interventions is often dependent on local resource users' underlying social interactions. However, it remains unclear how fine-scale differences in information shared between resource users can influence network structure and the success of behaviour-change interventions. We investigate this knowledge...

It is nearly three decades since the world recognized the need for a global multilateral treaty aiming to address accelerating biodiversity loss. However, biodiversity continues to decline at a concerning rate. Drawing on lessons from the implementation of the current strategic plan of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the 2010 Aichi Targe...

Bycatch poses a significant threat to marine megafauna, such as elasmobranchs. India has one of the highest elasmobranch landings globally, through both targeted catch and bycatch. As elasmobranchs contribute to food and livelihood security, there is a need for holistic approaches to bycatch mitigation. We adopt an interdisciplinary approach to cri...

The upcoming meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity aims to agree a Global Biodiversity Framework, representing an opportunity to transform humanity's relationship with nature. Restoring nature while meeting human needs requires a bold vision, but this will only succeed if biodiversity conservation can be mainstreamed throughout society....

The mitigation hierarchy has been proposed as an overarching framework for managing fisheries and reducing marine megafauna bycatch, but requires empirical application to show its practical utility. Focusing on a small-scale fishing community in Peru as a case study system, we test how the mitigation hierarchy can support efforts to reduce captures...

We compare judgments of green turtle (Chelonia mydas) captures elicited from local gillnet skippers and not‐for‐profit conservation organization employees operating in a small‐scale fishery in Peru, to capture rates calculated from a voluntary at‐sea observer program operating out of the same fishery. To reduce cognitive biases and more accurately...

The most widely applied decision-making process for balancing the trade-offs between conservation and development activities is the biodiversity mitigation process, implemented using environmental impact assessment supported by a conceptual ‘mitigation hierarchy’ framework. Yet to date, the exploration of the biodiversity mitigation process to the...

Globally, the populations of many marine mammals remain of critical concern after centuries of exploitation and hunting. However, some marine mammal populations (e.g. pinnipeds) have largely recovered from exploitation, and interactions between these species and fisheries - particularly small-scale fisheries - is once again of concern globally. The...

Much research and policy effort is being expended on ways to conserve living nature while enabling the economic and social development needed to increase equity and end poverty. We propose this will only be possible if policy shifts away from conservation targets that focus on avoiding losses towards processes that consider net outcomes for biodive...

This document presents the results of an expert knowledge elicitation workshop which identifies policy mechanisms of relevance to the issue of mosquito net fishing across the relevant sectors of public health, fisheries management, development and conservation. A synthesis of current policy and future recommendations is contextualised within the re...

The relationship between business and conservation is growing increasingly closer, with the recognition that collaboration can lead to better outcomes for biodiversity. Bennun et al. (2017) introduce the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (the Red List) to inform businesses' mitigation of biodiversity impacts; and subsequently how it can be improv...

In terrestrial and coastal systems, the mitigation hierarchy is widely and increasingly used to guide actions to ensure that no net loss of biodiversity ensues from development. We develop a conceptual model which applies this approach to the mitigation of marine megafauna by-catch in fisheries, going from defining an overarching goal with an assoc...

Hector's dolphins (Cephalorhynchus hectori hectori) are distributed discontinuously around the South Island of New Zealand, with genetically differentiated regional populations along the east, west and south coasts. Fine-scale assessments of local population structure are needed to better understand the role of corridors and local dispersal on the...

Coral-associated viruses are a component of the coral holobiont that have received attention only relatively recently. Given the global increase in the prevalence of coral disease, and the lack of positively identified etiological agents for many diseases, these virus consortia require increased investigation. Little is known about the viruses that...

Viruses are a ubiquitous component of coral reef ecosystems, with several viral types, from at least seven prokaryotic and 20 eukaryotic virus families currently characterised from the surface mucopolysaccharide layer (SML), coral tissue and the water column. However, little is known about the ecology and function of these viruses. For example, wha...