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Abstract
Among 17 breeding species recorded from the Juan Fernández Archipelago eight breeding species are endemic and eight of it are included in the Chilenian Red Data lists. The situation is highly critical for Aphrastura masafuerae and Sephanoides fernandensis. Introduced mammals have significant impact on breeding birds. Rats, cats, dogs, and coatis represent direct predation threats to the avifauna; feral rabbits and goats have influence by changing the habitats. Since eradication of introduced mammals is difficult, campaigns should start with goats on Alejandro Selkirk and rabbits on Robinson Crusoe and Santa Clara. Domestic cat numbers should be reduced in the settlement San Juan Bautista. As on Santa Clara eradication of all introduced mammals seems possible, it may function as a natural refuge for endangered seabird species.
... Competing interests: One of the authors, AF, is employed by a commercial company, Conservation Metrics, Inc, which was contracted by the nonprofit Oikonos (using funds from the aforementioned funders) to analyze data for this study. [21,[25][26][27][28]. IRC also has managed populations of cattle, horses, mules (E. ...
... [21,[25][26][27][28]. IRC also has managed populations of cattle, horses, mules (E. asinus x E. caballus) that range in wildlands [25,26]. Primary and secondary sources for introduced species observations for each island are listed in S1 Table. ...
... First, though there are published records of the introduced species assemblages on both islands, most records were secondary citations of a limited number of primary sources (S1 Table). There was only one study documenting the introduced fauna on Isla Mocha with primary observations [22], and two for IRC [25,27] (as well as a possible third we were unable to access [29]). All studies with primary observations were �19 years old, and three were >40 years old at the time of our study, suggesting that our understanding of the species present was outdated. ...
Biodiversity conservation planning requires accurate, current information about species status and threats. Although introduced mammals are the greatest threat to seabirds globally, data on introduced species is lacking for many seabird breeding islands. To inform conservation planning, we used trail cameras to document the presence, relative abundance, and seasonal and diel attendance of introduced and native vertebrates within pink-footed shearwater (Ardenna creatopus) breeding colonies on Isla Mocha (five colonies, 2015–2020) and Isla Robinson Crusoe (Juan Fernández Archipelago), Chile (one colony, 2019–2020). The most commonly detected species were pink-footed shearwaters and introduced rats (Rattus spp.) on Isla Mocha, and European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) and pink-footed shearwaters on Isla Robinson Crusoe. Introduced mammals observed, in order of greatest catch-per-unit-effort, were rats, cats (Felis catus), dogs (Canis lupus familiaris), and European hares (Lepus europaeus) on Isla Mocha and European rabbits, cats, cattle (Bos taurus), rats, dogs, mice (Mus musculus), and southern coati (Nasua nasua) on Isla Robinson Crusoe. Especially noteworthy results for pink-footed shearwater conservation were the presence of cats during all monitoring months in shearwater colonies on both islands, that catch-per-unit-effort of rabbits was greater than shearwaters on Isla Robinson Crusoe, and that rats were the most observed vertebrates after shearwaters on Isla Mocha. Pink-footed shearwaters were regularly present on the islands from October through May. Presence and relative catch-per-unit-effort of pink-footed shearwaters qualitatively matched the species’ known breeding phenology. The regular presence and temporal overlap with shearwaters of cats, rats, rabbits, and cattle within shearwater colonies, coupled with the irregular presence of dogs, coati, hares, and mice, indicated a serious conservation threat for pink-footed shearwaters and other native insular fauna and flora. Finally, our study provides a widely applicable model for analysis of multi-year trail camera data collected with unstandardized settings.
... Shirihai et al. (2015) counted approximately 85,000 individuals recorded at sea. The species is considered vulnerable due to its extremely restricted breeding area, indicating that it faces a high risk of extinction in the near future mainly due to the impacts of invasive species introductions and habitat degradation (Bourne et al., 1992;Hahn & Römer 2002;Reyes-Arriagada et al., 2012;Shirihai et al., 2015). ...
We document the first recorded occurrence of a Juan Fernández Petrel Pterodroma externa specimen in São Paulo State, South Atlantic, Brazil. This finding improves our understanding of the distribution of this pelagic species, which is rarely observed along the coast. It also suggests that unusual oceanographic conditions may disorient seabirds, causing them to appear in atypical areas.
... Solo en los Estados Unidos matan de 1.4 a 3.7 mil millones de aves por año (Bellard et al., 2017). En Chile se ha demostrado que gatos domésticos en Chiloé transmiten a guiñas los virus de la inmunodeficiencia felina y de la leucemia felina (Mora et al., 2015) y depredan sobre especies nativas de aves en el Archipiélago de Juan Fernández (Hahn y Römer, 2002). ...
La diversidad biológica es la variabilidad de organismos vivos de cualquier fuente, incluidos los ecosistemas terrestres y marinos; comprende la diversidad dentro de cada especie, entre las especies y de los ecosistemas. En Chile, se han registrado 35.600 especies entre plantas, animales, algas, hongos y bacterias, de las cuales el 25% son endémicas. El grupo con mayor número de especies en Chile son los insectos (33% de las especies nativas conocidas), le siguen las plantas (23% de las descritas) y hongos (11% de las especies descritas). La importancia que la conservación de esta diversidad reviste está ampliamente documentada y ahora hay que focalizarse en la conservación eficaz de esta biodiversidad. En la Región de La Araucanía, las amenazas a la biodiversidad fueron y son graves, una sobrexplotación por más de un siglo, la fragmentación severa del hábitat, con poco territorio no afectado, los incendios forestales permanentes, los efectos del cambio climático evidentes y los invasores biológicos en aumento exponen a las poblaciones de vida silvestre a una reducción de sus tamaños efectivos y a un aislamiento permanente, lo que implica más variación demográfica, más subdivisión de las poblaciones, depresión por endogamia (autocruzamientos) y menos habilidad para adaptarse a los nuevos escenarios ambientales por deriva genética; en síntesis, más riesgos de extinción.
... Invasive predators represent a major threat for biodiversity, including birds (Doherty et al. 2016). Free-ranging domestic cats (Felis catus) are a well-known threat to birds (Doherty et al. 2016), especially in island systems (Hahn and Römer 2002, Wiedenfeld and Jiménez-Uzcátegui 2008, Medina et al. 2011. Numbers in the Neotropics are hard to come by, but in the United States, cats are estimated to kill between 1.4 and 3.7 billion birds per year (Loss et al. 2013). ...
As the global human population increases, and many bird populations in the Neotropics and the rest of the world continue to decline, the study of the intersection of humans, birds, and conservation has become more relevant than ever. The field of conservation social science is an interdisciplinary field that applies the social sciences and humanities to examine research questions that have implications for biodiversity conservation, and encompasses disciplines as diverse as psychology, economics, and political ecology. An understanding of the human dimensions of biodiversity conservation issues can be an essential element in the success or failure of a conservation initiative, policy, or practice. The purpose of this article is to provide an understanding of the growing body of conservation social science relevant to Neotropical bird conservation research and to demonstrate its importance. We discuss how this research can contribute to addressing 5 major threats to bird conservation in the Neotropics, including future research needs, and we provide 3 case studies of bird conservation social science projects, demonstrating the insights that can be gained. We close with a discussion of how conservation biologists and ornithologists can most effectively work with conservation social scientists.
Habitat loss and degradation are currently the main anthropogenic causes of species extinctions. The root cause is human overpopulation. This unique volume provides, for the very first time, a comprehensive overview of all threatened and recently extinct mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes within the context of their locations and habitats. The approach takes a systematic examination of each biogeographic realm and region of the world, both terrestrial and marine, but with a particular emphasis on geographic features such as mountains, islands, and coral reefs. It reveals patterns useful in biodiversity conservation, helps to put it all into perspective, and ultimately serves as both a baseline from which to compare subsequent developments as well as a standardization of the way threatened species are studied.
Hummingbird species have closely evolved with the plants they feed on, which is confirmed by their often tight ecological relationships in natural settings. Hummingbird-plant interactions are of interest for research areas such as ecology, evolution, and even agriculture, as they usually inform on the conservation status of interacting species assemblages, and its disappearance may precede the population extinction of the species involved in the interaction. In Chile, there are nine hummingbird species, which interact with a large and diverse number of angiosperm species in forest, desert, and mountain range environments. The motivation to perform this review is to systematize the available information regarding the flowering plants visited by hummingbird species in Chile, to present some basic plant-hummingbird pollination network metrics, and on this basis to identify the components of the plant-hummingbird relationships in need of further research. A plant-hummingbird metanetwork revealed a low connectance value, low niche overlap, and strong modularity among species. However, the fact that most species present a strong allopatric distribution across Chile, suggests that network structure results mostly from the history of colonization rather than from ecological organization. Nowadays, the main threats to Chilean hummingbirds are anthropogenic disturbance and climate change, which disrupt hummingbird-plant interactions, leading to unpredictable ecological consequences at the community level. Long periods of drought may reduce the resource base for hummingbirds, with dramatic consequences for the maintenance of bird and plant populations.
We describe a new taxon of terrestrial bird of the genus Aphrastura (rayaditos) inhabiting the Diego Ramírez Archipelago, the southernmost point of the American continent. This archipelago is geographically isolated and lacks terrestrial mammalian predators as well as woody plants, providing a contrasted habitat to the forests inhabited by the other two Aphrastura spp. Individuals of Diego Ramírez differ morphologically from Aphrastura spinicauda , the taxonomic group they were originally attributed to, by their larger beaks, longer tarsi, shorter tails, and larger body mass. These birds move at shorter distances from ground level, and instead of nesting in cavities in trees, they breed in cavities in the ground, reflecting different life-histories. Both taxa are genetically differentiated based on mitochondrial and autosomal markers, with no evidence of current gene flow. Although further research is required to define how far divergence has proceeded along the speciation continuum, we propose A. subantarctica as a new taxonomic unit, given its unique morphological, genetic, and behavioral attributes in a non-forested habitat. The discovery of this endemic passerine highlights the need to monitor and conserve this still-pristine archipelago devoid of exotic species, which is now protected by the recently created Diego Ramírez Islands-Drake Passage Marine Park.