Skip to content
Ecological Intelligence

Ecological evidence.
Independent perspective.
Explore Wild Lands ↗

Ecological Intelligence / Subject

Movement

Peer-reviewed Africa

Reintroduced hyenas used dense cover, water—and roads only when human pressure was low

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa
System
Semi-arid reserve / large-carnivore landscape

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Reintroduced spotted hyenas selected denser vegetation and areas near permanent water, avoided places without herbivores and waterholes near lodges, and used roads more under cooler or lower-traffic conditions. The study illustrates how ecological resources and human activity jointly structured use of a restored carnivore landscape.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Reintroduction success depends on the spatial pattern of resources and disturbance after release, not simply on whether habitat is nominally protected.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Only five reintroduced animals were studied in a fenced reserve without other top predators. The results describe space use in a particular reintroduction context, not a general habitat-selection rule for spotted hyenas.

SOURCE

Journal of Mammalogy — primary field tracking study
View original evidence ↗

Tracking five spotted hyenas in a fenced South African reserve links space use to vegetation, permanent water, prey and the timing of human disturbance.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Peer-reviewed

Sharks are using a Mediterranean power-station hotspot as a seasonal thermal landscape

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Orot-Rabin power station and Israeli Mediterranean coast
System
Coastal infrastructure / eastern Mediterranean

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Telemetry from 35 dusky and 23 sandbar sharks showed low interannual return to the broader region but pronounced within-season residency around the Orot-Rabin power station. Visits showed seasonal and diel structure, and shark body temperature increased during visits and exceeded ambient conditions, consistent with use of the thermal plume for thermoregulatory benefit.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Infrastructure can create ecological attractors that function differently from the surrounding seascape. Understanding those attractors requires treating temperature, movement and human exposure together rather than classifying the site only as industrial habitat or disturbance.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is an observational study of one aggregation site and two shark species. Thermoregulation is a supported interpretation rather than an experimentally isolated mechanism, and aggregation at infrastructure can also increase exposure to fishing, vessel traffic or other risks.

SOURCE

Movement Ecology
View original evidence ↗

Telemetry on 58 dusky and sandbar sharks found strong within-season residency at an Israeli power station, where body temperatures rose during visits despite low year-to-year return.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →
Preprint Europe

Some apparent ‘heritability’ in dispersal may be the geometry of the nest boxes

Evidence
Preprint
Geography
Four long-term European blue-tit nest-box populations
System
Woodland nest-box bird populations

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Using four blue-tit populations monitored for 26–48 years, the preprint combines pedigrees for 2,718 individuals with genomic analyses on 139 birds. Estimated natal-dispersal heritability ranged from about 0.03 to 0.13, but permutation and power analyses showed that nest-box spatial arrangement could generate spurious additive genetic variance in three of the four populations; four SNP associations were also reported.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

For long-running field studies, the sampling lattice is not neutral. Spatially structured monitoring can leak into genetic inference, which makes this a useful methodological signal well beyond dispersal ecology.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is a preprint with modest heritability estimates and broad uncertainty, and the genome-wide sample is small. Results come from intensively monitored nest-box populations and the reported SNP associations should be treated as exploratory until replicated.

SOURCE

EcoEvoRxiv
View original evidence ↗

A new blue-tit preprint finds modest genetic signal for natal dispersal—but shows spatial autocorrelation can manufacture additive variance in three of four populations.

Read the Wild Lands assessment →

Keep exploring

Follow the systems. Find the connections.

WildlifeLandWaterOceansClimateCitiesOne HealthGovernanceMethods / Monitoring
Browse the archive →