Publications by authors named "Maire Kirkland"

Understanding the distribution of breeding populations of migratory animals in the non-breeding period (migratory connectivity) is important for understanding their response to environmental change. High connectivity (low non-breeding population dispersion) may lower resilience to climate change and increase vulnerability to habitat loss within their range. Very high levels of connectivity are reportedly rare, but this conclusion may be limited by methodology.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Chelonians, like turtles, are crucial for nutrition and income in tropical rainforests, but urban trade threatens their wild populations, especially in the Northern Peruvian Amazon.
  • A study conducted over 526 days in Iquitos revealed a significant decline in urban chelonian trade (down 161.6%) from 2006 to 2018, with turtles being the most traded species.
  • The rising trade of river turtle eggs indicates a shift in sales priorities, which could enhance the conservation of adult turtles while potentially reducing the detrimental effects of meat sales on their populations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Failure to adapt migration timing to changes in environmental conditions along migration routes and at breeding locations can result in mismatches across trophic levels, as occurs between the brood parasitic common cuckoo and its hosts. Using satellite tracking data from 87 male cuckoos across 11 years, we evaluate why the cuckoo has not advanced its arrival to the UK. Across years, breeding ground arrival was primarily determined by timing of departure from stopover in West Africa before northward crossing of the Sahara.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Landscape fires are a natural component of the Earth System. However, they are of growing global concern due to climate change exacerbating their multiple impacts on biodiversity, ecosystems, carbon storage, human health, economies, and wider society. Temperate regions are predicted to be at greatest risk of increasing fire activity due to climate change, where fires can seriously impact important ecosystems for biodiversity and carbon storage, such as peatlands and forests.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The trade in wild meat is crucial for the livelihoods of rural communities but is linked to wildlife decline and health risks, especially highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • In Iquitos, Peru, wild meat sales rose significantly over 45 years, with urban population growth driving this trend, yet it only accounted for a small percentage (1-2%) of overall meat consumption.
  • The analysis suggests that future strategies should focus on community management of wildlife, continued bans on trading threatened species, and improved hygiene practices in wild-meat markets to minimize health risks and preserve biodiversity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In the western Amazon Basin, recent intensification of river-level cycles has increased flooding during the wet seasons and decreased precipitation during the dry season. Greater than normal floods occurred in 2009 and in all years from 2011 to 2015 during high-water seasons, and a drought occurred during the 2010 low-water season. During these years, we surveyed populations of terrestrial, arboreal, and aquatic wildlife in a seasonally flooded Amazonian forest in the Loreto region of Peru (99,780 km ) to study the effects of intensification of natural climatic fluctuations on wildlife populations and in turn effects on resource use by local people.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF