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Ecological Intelligence / Subject

coexistence

Peer-reviewed Global

Diversity in dispersal strategies can buffer competitive-exclusion risk

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Global framework; forest validation datasets
System
Ecological communities / forests

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

The study develops a competitive-balance metric that incorporates abundance, diversity of dispersal strategies and interspecific interactions. For a given abundance, greater heterogeneity in dispersal strategies reduced modeled vulnerability to competitive exclusion, and the framework was evaluated with tropical and temperate forest data.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Connectivity is not just the amount of movement. Diversity in how species move can itself contribute to coexistence, which may matter when corridors, fragmentation or restoration simplify movement opportunities.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

The core result is theoretical and has so far been validated mainly against forest datasets. Its usefulness across other taxa, disturbance regimes and managed landscapes remains to be tested.

SOURCE

Nature Ecology & Evolution — primary theory and validation study
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A new framework combines abundance, dispersal diversity and competition to estimate local-extinction vulnerability; forest data suggest heterogeneous dispersal strategies can reduce exclusion risk.

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Peer-reviewed Africa

Barbary macaque conservation is colliding with farm viability in northern Algeria

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Central North Algeria
System
Forest–farm interface and Barbary macaque human-wildlife conflict

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A Scientific Reports study surveyed 94 farmers in Central North Algeria about crop-foraging by Endangered Barbary macaques. Farmers widely perceived macaques as a nuisance, and the authors report that one third of farms had been abandoned in association with severe crop losses. Crop-foraging varied seasonally and with farm and landscape context, underscoring that conflict is shaped by how agriculture and macaque habitat meet rather than by species presence alone.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

This is a coexistence problem, not just a wildlife problem. Conservation can become socially brittle when the benefits of maintaining a threatened species are broad but crop losses are concentrated on individual farmers. Durable protection therefore needs credible damage measurement, prevention and locally workable burden-sharing—not merely legal protection or awareness.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

The evidence is based largely on farmer surveys and observational associations rather than experimentally measured crop loss or a controlled mitigation trial. Reported abandonment and perceptions should therefore be treated as indicators of conflict severity, not precise estimates of macaque-attributable economic loss.

SOURCE

Scientific Reports
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A survey of 94 farmers found severe crop-foraging conflict around the Endangered Barbary macaque, including farm abandonment—an example of threatened-species conservation failing if coexistence costs stay local.

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Peer-reviewed Africa

Carnivore coexistence in southern Ethiopia looks partly like a husbandry problem, not only a wildlife-attitude problem

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Woze-Degena landscape, southern Ethiopia
System
Human-modified pastoral and agropastoral landscape

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A semi-structured survey of 920 household heads in seven villages documented reported livestock depredation primarily by spotted hyenas and then leopards. Conservation perceptions varied with depredation experience, herd size, education, gender and residence length, while poor husbandry was identified as a problem and enhanced guarding was widely favored as a response.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Human–carnivore coexistence is shaped by the actual operating conditions of livestock keeping. Conservation messaging alone is unlikely to substitute for reducing avoidable losses, strengthening husbandry and designing mitigation around how people experience risk.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is a perception and self-report study, not direct monitoring of carnivore abundance or verified depredation events. Associations may reflect reporting and social factors, and the findings come from one southern Ethiopian landscape.

SOURCE

Environmental and Sustainability Indicators · Original evidence
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A seven-village survey links conservation perceptions to lived depredation risk and points toward guarding and livestock-management capacity as part of the coexistence equation.

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