Fitness effects of ecotourism on an endangered carnivore,Animal Conservation

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Fitness effects of ecotourism on an endangered carnivore
Animal Conservation ( IF 2.8 ) Pub Date : 2019-11-04 , DOI: 10.1111/acv.12548
M. Larm ₁ , R. Erlandsson ₁ , K. Norén ₁ , A. Angerbjörn ₁

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Nature‐based recreational and tourism activities can exert significant direct and indirect impacts on wildlife, through behavioral, physiological and distributional changes. Despite many studies demonstrating such changes, few attempts have been made to quantify the fitness consequences and evaluate their biological significance. Helagsfjällen in Sweden is a core area of the endangered Fennoscandian arctic fox Vulpes lagopus, and a popular area for recreational tourism. Some dens in the area experience daily disturbance from tourism during the summer season, while others are virtually undisturbed. We used a long‐term dataset (2008–2017) of 553 juveniles in 74 litters to investigate summer juvenile survival, which is an important fitness component for the arctic fox. We found that the mean juvenile survival rate increased from 0.56 at undisturbed dens to 0.83 at disturbed den during years of decreasing small‐rodent abundance, where predation on the arctic fox is presumed to be highest. We suggest that the increased survival could be mediated by a human activity‐induced predator refuge for the arctic foxes in close proximity of trails and mountain huts. Our study demonstrates a possible positive indirect effect of nature‐based tourism on wildlife and is one of a few studies attempting to quantify this impact. It highlights the importance of context for how animals are affected by disturbance. We also demonstrate that studying how the effects of tourism activity vary depending on the context could provide opportunities for identifying the mechanisms behind these effects, which can be an important link between scientific research and the management of wildlife and tourism activities.

中文翻译：

生态旅游对濒危食肉动物的健身影响

通过行为，生理和分布的变化，基于自然的娱乐和旅游活动可以对野生生物产生重大的直接和间接影响。尽管有许多研究证明了这种改变，但很少尝试量化适应性后果并评估其生物学意义。瑞典的Helagsfjällen是濒临灭绝的Fennoscandian北极狐Vulpes lagopus的核心区域，以及休闲旅游的热门地区。在夏季，该地区的一些洞穴每天都会受到旅游业的干扰，而其他洞穴则几乎不受干扰。我们使用74个垫料中的553个少年的长期数据集（2008-2017年）调查了夏季少年的生存情况，这是北极狐的重要适应性组成部分。我们发现，在小啮齿动物数量减少的几年中，幼年平均存活率从不受干扰的窝处的0.56增长到受干扰的窝处的0.83，其中北极狐的捕食被认为是最高的。我们建议增加的生存率可能是由人类活动引起的靠近小径和山间小屋的北极狐的食肉动物庇护所所介导的。我们的研究表明基于自然的旅游对野生动植物可能产生积极的间接影响，并且是试图量化这种影响的少数研究之一。它强调了环境对于动物如何受到干扰影响的重要性。我们还表明，研究旅游活动的影响如何根据环境变化可能会提供机会，以查明这些影响的背后机制，这可能是科学研究与野生动植物和旅游活动管理之间的重要联系。

更新日期：2019-11-04

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