Extinction is difficult to detect, even in well-known taxa such as mammals. Species with long gaps in their sighting records, which might be considered possibly extinct, are often rediscovered. We used data on rediscovery rates of missing mammals to test whether extinction from different causes is equally detectable and to find which traits affect the probability of rediscovery. We find that sp...

identification of rapid degradation of ecological resources requires effective environmental monitoring including ecological integrity assessment .our first aim is to analyze ecological integrity in a landscape context while developing a method to assess integrity in spite of a dearth of historical data. we used a spatial-temporal reference framework for land cover maps for assessing ecological...

Southeast Asia has some of the highest deforestation rates globally, with Malaysia being identified as a deforestation hotspot. The Malayan tiger, a critically endangered subspecies of the tiger endemic to Peninsular Malaysia, is threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation. In this study, we estimate the natural forest loss and conversion to plantations in Peninsular Malaysia and specifically ...

Understanding how populations respond to habitat loss is central to conserving biodiversity. Population genetic approaches enable the identification of the symptoms of population disruption in advance of population collapse. However, the spatio-temporal scales at which population disruption occurs are still too poorly known to effectively conserve biodiversity in the face of human-induced lands...

While it is generally assumed that specialist species are more vulnerable to disturbance compared with generalist counterparts, this has rarely been tested in coastal marine ecosystems, which are increasingly subject to a wide range of natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Habitat specialists are expected to be more vulnerable to habitat loss because habitat availability exerts a greater limi...

Changes in the potential habitat of five allopatric species of threatened Macrozamia cycads under scenarios of increased ambient temperature were examined. A lack of seed dispersal, poor recruitment, low seedling survival, obligate pollinator mutualisms and continued habitat loss have led to extant populations being largely restricted to refugia. Models predict that the area of suitable habitat...

Animal-mediated pollination is essential for both ecosystem services and conservation of global biodiversity, but a growing body of work reveals that it is negatively affected by anthropogenic disturbance. Landscape-scale disturbance results in two often inter-related processes: (1) habitat loss, (2) disruptions of habitat configuration (i.e. fragmentation). Understanding the relative effects o...