Spatial ecology of human-wildlife interactions and conflicts
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Highly mobile marine megafauna have complex life histories that are often distributed across habitats, regions, and jurisdictional boundaries. Therefore, these life histories, and their potential interactions with an increasingly saturated marine environment in the Anthropocene must be evaluated across relevant spatial and temporal scales. In this dissertation, I explore dimensions of biophysically-driven ecological patterns and resulting human-wildlife interactions. First, I review existing literature on land-dependent marine megafauna and identify commonalities in stressors related to climate change for this clade. I recommend three considerations for quantifying the vulnerability of a land-dependent population, including degree of specialization, intraspecies population-level differences and non-climate anthropogenic stressors, and discuss how the exclusion of these considerations may lead to less successful conservation outcomes. Next, I assess ship strike risk to blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) in the Southern California Bight and find that it is beneficial to incorporate dynamic, high-resolution information on both anthropogenic activities and species distributions when evaluating the risk of a human-wildlife conflict. Results indicate that coarse or static data inputs can mask important variability in day-to-day co-occurrence. In the last two chapters, I turn to the Pacific blue marlin (Makaira nigricans) and Indo-Pacific sailfish (Istiophorus platypterus) populations in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean as an empirical case study to quantify vertical and horizontal habitat use of two valuable ecological top predators and recreational target species. Blue marlin and sailfish showed similar vertical and horizontal niches but also evidence of habitat partitioning. In both of these studies, I evaluate how dynamic environmental features unique to this ecosystem relate to the variability in vertical and horizontal behavior and potentially influence the catchability of these species. Findings from these studies elucidate how regionally residential these two billfish species may be to this area of their stocks and indicate a need for cooperative management across jurisdictions in Central America. Taken holistically, this dissertation evidentiates the need to consider multiple spatial and temporal scales when surveying human-wildlife interactions in the marine environment and contributes to the development of conservation tools and strategies that can be used to manage vulnerable populations.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2022; ©2022 |
| Publication date | 2022; 2022 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Blondin, Hannah Elizabeth |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Crowder, Larry B |
| Degree supervisor | Hazen, Elliott Lee |
| Thesis advisor | Crowder, Larry B |
| Thesis advisor | Hazen, Elliott Lee |
| Thesis advisor | Abrahms, Briana |
| Thesis advisor | Micheli, Fiorenza |
| Thesis advisor | Thompson, Stuart, (Professor of biology) |
| Degree committee member | Abrahms, Briana |
| Degree committee member | Micheli, Fiorenza |
| Degree committee member | Thompson, Stuart, (Professor of biology) |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Biology |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Hannah Elizabeth Blondin. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Biology. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2022. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/gj085wj8359 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2022 by Hannah Elizabeth Blondin
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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