Grant: Canada Research Chairs

Confronting the global biodiversity crisis requires management actions that result in effective conservation outcomes across large spatial scales. Context-dependency hinders development of general conservation solutions, necessitating a scientific framework and evidence-base that links local contexts to regional processes. The Canada Research Chair in Terrestrial Mammal Conservation will inform the conservation of terrestrial mammals—a key ecological and cultural component of biodiversity—by testing for predictable patterns in mammal community responses to human disturbances and management actions across multiple scales. We will apply innovative sampling and analytical tools, centred on the use of noninvasive camera trap technologies, to test hypotheses about the direct and indirect effects of human activities on wildlife. The program will focus on landscape-level experimental contrasts related to two critical conservation challenges in western Canada: the recovery of endangered caribou and the management of increasing outdoor recreation in protected areas. We will sample across gradients in human pressures, management manipulations, and environmental conditions to evaluate support for statistical models of the distribution, abundance, and behaviour of interacting mammal species. Our results will not only inform the conservation of caribou and the development of sustainable recreation, but will more generally improve understanding of mammal ecology and promote human-wildlife coexistence in the Anthropocene. In so doing, the research program will train future generations of wildlife researchers and practitioners, and advance efforts to build effective global monitoring systems to help reverse widespread declines in biodiversity.