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Nature-based health interventions (NBIs) are programmes, activities or strategies that engage people with nature to produce wide-ranging improvements to health. However, there are limitations in initiating, scaling and sustaining them. This study takes an exploratory approach to understand initial perspectives of prospective peer leaders of NBIs.We applied a qualitative approach, using a workshop (n=14), online interview (n=1) and online survey (n=2) to explore the motivations, interests and concerns of prospective peer leaders of NBIs. The recruited study participants had experience of NBI programmes for poor mental health and expressed interest in peer leadership. Audio, written responses and researcher field notes were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.Motivations related to the promotion of personal and community wellbeing through learning, sharing nature experiences, creating social connections, and in facilitating a wide range of nature-based and salutogenic activities (e.g. arts, conservation or nature appreciation). These reflect the relational underpinnings of social prescribing and highlight the potential for peer leaders to create enabling conditions for social prescribing processes. Concerns centred on the practicalities of establishing and safely delivering nature-based activity, the personal competencies required to deliver NBIs, resource needs, and nervousness with the medicalised nature of social prescribing. Reluctance to engage with social prescribing systems, coupled with a preference for support from VCSE organisations, underscores the need for both sectors to reflect on their respective roles, positioning and practices. Greater integration with motivated and interested communities may bring mutual benefit and help peer leaders achieve stated aims of community-based health promotion through nature.
Assessing the impacts of changing environmental conditions on animal species requires thorough understanding of population dynamics, which can be difficult to estimate when animals aggregate into spatially discrete subpopulations. We used 39 years of fecundity, capture-recapture and abundance data in an integrated metapopulation model to study environmental drivers of demography in a declining migratory bird, the Greenland white-fronted goose (Anser albifrons flavirostris). We found that low fecundity due to earlier spring vegetation phenology on staging areas and increased snow on breeding areas explained metapopulation decline, though the strength of these effects varied by subpopulation. Differential immigration and emigration rates affected local wintering abundance trends, highlighting the importance of quantifying subpopulation-metapopulation dynamics for understanding fragmented animal populations. We provide a framework for extending commonly used integrated population models to a metapopulation framework for testing novel ecological hypotheses about how changing environmental conditions within and among subpopulations drive changes in animal abundance.
Long-term surveys for monitoring the demographics of a population can shed light on reproductive success and survival, as well as identify when changes may have occurred. For many species, collecting this data can be time consuming and labour intensive but for harvestable species we are able to collect this data more easily and use demographic patterns in the harvested population as a proxy for demographic changes in the overall population. Here, we use a 37-year dataset of harvested wildfowl wings to explore the demographic changes in two popular quarry species, Eurasian teal Anas crecca and Eurasian wigeon Mareca penelope. Generalised linear models revealed a significant decline in the reproductive index (juveniles per adult female) of Eurasian teal, which has halved over the study period alongside a decline in the proportion of females within the adult population. These declines are somewhat at odds with the long-term increasing wintering population trend within the northwest European flyway. Similarly, for Eurasian wigeon we found a significant decline in the proportion of adult females and reproductive index, the latter of which has dropped by a third. After notable wintering population declines across the northwest European flyway over the past decade, this population is now increasing and beginning to recover. Our results demonstrate that demographic changes observed in national datasets may not always align with flyway‑level population trends and express the need for collaborative, long-term monitoring of our migratory species across their flyway to better inform sustainable harvest.
Seabirds are among the most threatened bird groups globally and often depend on invasive-predator-free breeding islands. In the tropics, coral atoll islands constitute important seabird refugia, yet some major atoll archipelagos remain poorly documented. The Maldives, an archipelago comprising over 1,200 atoll islands, has received little attention as a potential seabird breeding region, limiting the evidence base for bird conservation action. Here, we present the first quantitative assessment of breeding phenology, breeding performance, and colony trends for any seabird in the Maldives, focusing on the White-tailed Tropicbird Phaethon lepturus, a widespread yet globally-declining species. We conducted weekly surveys of breeding activity and developmental stages on an island in the central Maldives over 2.6 years (August 2022-March 2025; 138 survey weeks). In the Maldives, White-tailed Tropicbirds bred year-round with an approximately eight-month cycle in peak breeding activity. Breeding success was 60.2% and the number of active nests increased nearly two-fold over the study period, resulting in a total estimated population of over 100 breeding pairs by the end of the survey. Nest survival analysis identified a c.10-day period of elevated nest failure risk after hatching, likely driven by predation of hatchlings by a suppressed but residual invasive ship rat Rattus rattus population on the island. These findings provide the first quantitative baseline for seabird breeding in the Maldives and reveal highly productive breeding in this under-studied archipelago. Notably, the colony occurred on a tourist resort island, suggesting that when effective invasive predator suppression and protection of breeding habitat occur, seabird breeding can be enabled on inhabited islands. Establishing and scaling comparable management and monitoring standards across tourist islands could facilitate small but viable breeding populations across the Maldivian archipelago. These populations could act as important sources for recolonising uninhabited Maldivian islands when restored to predator-free status.
Human encroachment into the natural environment through agricultural expansion has intensified human-wildlife interactions. Negative population impacts are regularly associated with this encroachment; however, some species, including geese, benefit from novel resources these modified environments provide, often resulting in conflict with local stakeholders. Shooting management to reduce populations and/or alter distribution by manipulating the fear landscape is a common approach to mitigate conflicts. However, the efficacy of these strategies in driving redistributions is often unclear. Greenland barnacle geese (Branta leucopsis) wintering on Islay, Scotland have been subject to shooting management to mitigate their effect on farm pastures. We evaluated the effectiveness of this strategy in influencing field use and abundance at an island-wide scale. Using a unique long-term data set (2005-2019) of goose distribution and shooting activity, we assessed within-winter drivers of foraging distribution within improved grassland in relation to habitat variability and shooting disturbance. We found field use was predominantly associated with forage acquisition at a field-scale and low-intensity shooting disturbance had no observed effect on abundance. Foraging was likely prioritised and has a stronger influence than disturbance, though geese did preferentially forage on perceived 'safer' fields (close to roosts, further from roads). Consequently, the impacts on redistribution were more marginal. Synthesis and Applications. Our results demonstrate that to be effective in stimulating redistribution, an understanding of the drivers of site use is crucial for shooting-based disturbance regimes. We emphasise the importance of providing refuges to encourage site use and highlight the importance of considering the spatio-temporal coordination of shooting disturbance to stimulate distributional shifts.
