A framework to measure the wildness of managed large vertebrate populations.

As landscapes continue to fall under human influence through habitat loss and fragmentation, fencing is increasingly being used to mitigate anthropogenic threats and enhance the commercial value of wildlife. Subsequent intensification of management potentially erodes wildness by disembodying populations from landscape-level processes, thereby disconnecting species from natural selection. Tools are needed to measure the degree to which populations of large vertebrate species in formally protected and privately owned wildlife areas are self-sustaining and free to adapt.

Habitat use and life history as predictors of bird responses to habitat change.

In theory the consideration of life-history characteristics should provide a way of making predictive generalizations about the responses of different species to environmental modification. Nevertheless, few studies have tested the validity of this assumption or attempted to apply it across large numbers of related species. We explored both quantitative and qualitative contrasts between species of waterbirds that have either expanded or contracted their ranges in southern Africa over the past 40 years to test the hypothesis that expansionists and contractionists, respectively, should share life-history characteristics and/or ecological attributes.