Bamber Jack A, Shuttleworth Craig M, Hayward Matt W
School of Biological Sciences, Bangor University, Deiniol Road, Bangor LL572UW, Gwynedd, Wales, UK.
School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen, King's College, Aberdeen AB24 3FX, UK.
Animals (Basel). 2020 Sep 26;10(10):1748. doi: 10.3390/ani10101748.
Conservation translocations, including reintroductions, are practices that are vital to restoring biodiversity and ecosystem function within conservation schemes globally. Sadly, population translocations have had a poor success rate historically. At a time where biodiversity is constantly decreasing, improving translocation success is vital for future conservation schemes. Often, to improve success, the selection of individuals is based on genetic characteristics and behaviours linked directly to survival. Further development to improve selection is proposed within this paper using animal personality. The study took place opportunistically to test how personality, in particular an animal's boldness/timidness, may influence a population restoration of red squirrels into the Ogwen Valley, North Wales. Despite frequent translocations, data on how boldness and timidness may affect the establishment of this species are low. Testing was performed on key survival behaviours and boldness/timidness pre-release. This was performed via video data collection and identification of key behaviours that could be used to identify boldness or behaviours that could be linked to reduced fitness once released. Encounters at different distance intervals were monitored post-release via camera trapping to identify if boldness/timidness may change the furthest encounter distance of focal animals away from their release site. Relationships between the period for an individual to reappear post-threat was significantly linked to boldness, with other behavioural results and the encounter distance also showing trends of a potential relationship. Our results indicate that bolder individuals have a higher chance of expressing behavioural traits that will increase exposure to risks and, therefore, reduce the likelihood of successfully establishing populations. However, the small sample size of this study means that further research is needed. We suggest that during early stages of conservation translocation programmes, personality testing for boldness should become common practice, and we recommend selecting timid individuals for an initial release to improve population establishment, with bolder individuals utilised later to expand population distribution.
保护性迁移，包括再引入，是对全球保护计划中恢复生物多样性和生态系统功能至关重要的实践。遗憾的是，种群迁移在历史上成功率很低。在生物多样性不断减少的时代，提高迁移成功率对未来的保护计划至关重要。通常，为了提高成功率，个体的选择基于与生存直接相关的遗传特征和行为。本文提出利用动物个性进一步改进选择方法。该研究是机会性进行的，以测试个性，特别是动物的大胆/胆小程度，如何影响红松鼠重新引入北威尔士奥格文山谷的种群恢复。尽管频繁进行迁移，但关于大胆和胆小程度如何影响该物种建立的数据却很少。在放生前对关键生存行为和大胆/胆小程度进行了测试。这是通过视频数据收集和识别可用于识别大胆程度的关键行为或放生前与适应性降低相关的行为来完成的。放生前通过相机诱捕监测不同距离间隔的相遇情况，以确定大胆/胆小程度是否会改变目标动物远离放归地点的最远相遇距离。个体在受到威胁后再次出现的时间与大胆程度显著相关，其他行为结果和相遇距离也显示出潜在关系的趋势。我们的结果表明，更大胆的个体更有可能表现出增加风险暴露的行为特征，从而降低成功建立种群的可能性。然而，本研究的样本量较小，这意味着需要进一步研究。我们建议，在保护迁移计划的早期阶段，对大胆程度进行个性测试应成为常规做法，我们建议选择胆小的个体进行首次放归以改善种群建立，而大胆的个体随后用于扩大种群分布。
