Rangers on the frontline of wildlife monitoring: a case study on African lions in Uganda's Nile Delta.

Regular population monitoring of imperilled charismatic species such as large carnivores is critical for conservation. However, the role of monitoring in conservation is frequently diminished due to: 1) surveys being implemented in isolation, 2) limited on-ground-capacity leading to infrequent monitoring, and 3) inappropriate methods being applied. Wildlife monitoring is often resource-intensive and the utility and cost of different field protocols is rarely reported.

Diversity in invasive species management networks.

Effective management of invasive species requires collaboration across a range of stakeholders. These stakeholders exhibit diverse attributes such as organisation types, operational scale, objectives, and roles within projects. Identifying the diverse attributes of stakeholders is beneficial for increasing collaboration success while minimising potential conflicts among multiple stakeholders when managing invasive species across landscapes.

Academic publishing requires linguistically inclusive policies.

Scientific knowledge is produced in multiple languages but is predominantly published in English. This practice creates a language barrier to generate and transfer scientific knowledge between communities with diverse linguistic backgrounds, hindering the ability of scholars and communities to address global challenges and achieve diversity and equity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). To overcome those barriers, publishers and journals should provide a fair system that supports non-native English speakers and disseminates knowledge across the globe.

How success is evaluated in collaborative invasive species management: A systematic review.

Invasive species are one of the most pressing global challenges for biodiversity and agriculture. They can cause species extinctions, ecosystem alterations, crop damage, and spread harmful diseases across broad regions. Overcoming this challenge requires collaborative management efforts that span multiple land tenures and jurisdictions.

Setting conservation priorities in multi-actor systems.

Nature conservation is underresourced, requiring managers to prioritize where, when, and how to spend limited funds. Prioritization methods identify the subset of actions that provide the most benefit to an actor's objective. However, spending decisions by conservation actors are often misaligned with their objectives.

The unequal burden of human-wildlife conflict.

Human-wildlife conflict is one of the most pressing sustainable development challenges globally. This is particularly the case where ecologically and economically important wildlife impact the livelihoods of humans. Large carnivores are one such group and their co-occurrence with low-income rural communities often results in real or perceived livestock losses that place increased costs on already impoverished households.

Invasive wild pigs (Sus scrofa) as a human-mediated source of soil carbon emissions: Uncertainties and future directions.

Invasive wild pigs (Sus scrofa) have been spread by humans outside of their native range and are now established on every continent except Antarctica. Through their uprooting of soil, they affect societal and environmental values. Our recent article explored another threat from their soil disturbance: greenhouse gas emissions (O'Bryan et al.

Unrecognized threat to global soil carbon by a widespread invasive species.

Most of Earth's terrestrial carbon is stored in the soil and can be released as carbon dioxide (CO ) when disturbed. Although humans are known to exacerbate soil CO emissions through land-use change, we know little about the global carbon footprint of invasive species. We predict the soil area disturbed and resulting CO emissions from wild pigs (Sus scrofa), a pervasive human-spread vertebrate that uproots soil.

The importance of Indigenous Peoples' lands for the conservation of terrestrial mammals.

Indigenous Peoples' lands cover over one-quarter of Earth's surface, a significant proportion of which is still free from industrial-level human impacts. As a result, Indigenous Peoples and their lands are crucial for the long-term persistence of Earth's biodiversity and ecosystem services. Yet, information on species composition on these lands globally remains largely unknown.

Correction: Hotspots of human impact on threatened terrestrial vertebrates.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.

The mesoscavenger release hypothesis and implications for ecosystem and human well-being.

Many apex scavenger species, including nearly all obligate scavengers, are in a state of rapid decline and there is growing evidence these declines can drastically alter ecological food webs. Our understanding of how apex scavengers regulate populations of mesoscavengers, those less-efficient scavengers occupying mid-trophic levels, is improving; yet, there has been no comprehensive evaluation of the evidence around the competitive release of these species by the loss of apex scavengers. Here we present current evidence that supports the mesoscavenger release hypothesis, the increase in mesoscavengers and increase in carrion in the face of declining apex scavengers.

Hotspots of human impact on threatened terrestrial vertebrates.

Conserving threatened species requires identifying where across their range they are being impacted by threats, yet this remains unresolved across most of Earth. Here, we present a global analysis of cumulative human impacts on threatened species by using a spatial framework that jointly considers the co-occurrence of eight threatening processes and the distribution of 5,457 terrestrial vertebrates. We show that impacts to species are widespread, occurring across 84% of Earth's surface, and identify hotspots of impacted species richness and coolspots of unimpacted species richness.

Author Correction: The contribution of predators and scavengers to human well-being.

In the version of this Review originally published, there were a number of errors that the authors wish to correct.

The contribution of predators and scavengers to human well-being.

Predators and scavengers are frequently persecuted for their negative effects on property, livestock and human life. Research has shown that these species play important regulatory roles in intact ecosystems including regulating herbivore and mesopredator populations that in turn affect floral, soil and hydrological systems. Yet predators and scavengers receive surprisingly little recognition for their benefits to humans in the landscapes they share.