Conservation management in human-modified landscapes requires information on the sustainability of interactions between people and biodiversity. Wild Chinese alligators Alligator sinensis only persist within the National Chinese Alligator Reserve in south-eastern China, where they live alongside agricultural communities that utilize local terrestrial and wetland habitats. We conducted an interview survey of communities within and around the Reserve to evaluate whether local ecological knowledge can provide a baseline on the species' local status and trends, and to understand the relationships between land-use practices and alligator presence and survival. Respondents within the Reserve were more likely to recognize alligators, report sightings and perceive declines than other respondents. Absolute levels of knowledge and experience of alligators were low, highlighting the species' perilous status, and analysis of correlative patterns between respondents' experiences and associated data on human–environmental interactions provides new conservation-relevant insights. Alligator sightings were more likely to be reported by respondents who did not grow crops, and eggs and nests by those who did not utilize local water sources for irrigation, suggesting that existing environmental pressures associated with agriculture may be unsustainable for alligators. Although respondents who lived outside the Reserve were more likely to use agrochemicals, we found no relationship between pesticide or fertilizer usage and variation in respondent awareness or experience of alligators. Our findings indicate that China's last wild alligators continue to experience negative human pressures, and current land-use practices are probably incompatible with long-term alligator survival.

Evidence-based conservation can be hindered by limited field data, but historical archives have the potential to provide unique insights into conservation-relevant parameters, such as identification of suitable habitat for threatened species. The Manumea or Tooth-billed Pigeon Didunculus strigirostris has declined on Samoa and only a tiny remnant population still persists, and a key first step for conservation is to locate surviving birds. Numerous Manumea records are available from the nineteenth century onwards, and we used historical and modern records to generate a series of species distribution models to predict the distribution of suitable habitat across Samoa to guide new field searches. Manumea distribution is closely associated with forest cover or its proxies. Preferred Manumea food plants are suggested to be low-elevation trees, but elevation provides relatively low percentage contribution in most models, thus not excluding the possibility that Manumea might occur at high elevations. There is also little evidence for elevational change in records over the past century. Models based on visual versus acoustic records exhibit differences in predicted habitat suitability, suggesting that some purported acoustic records might not actually represent Manumea calls. Field searches should target areas representing high habitat suitability across all models, notably the forested central axis of Upolu.

Baseline data on local status of threatened species are often limited, and alternative information sources such as local ecological knowledge (LEK) have potential to provide conservation insights but require critical evaluation. We assess the usefulness of LEK to generate conservation evidence for the Hainan Peacock-pheasant Polyplectron katsumatae, a poorly known threatened island galliform. Interview surveys in rural communities across eight forested landscapes on Hainan provided a new dataset of sightings of Peacock-pheasants and other galliforms. Fewer respondents had seen Peacock-pheasants compared to other species across most landscapes, although Peacock-pheasant sightings showed significant across-landscape variation, with substantially more total and recent sightings from Yinggeling National Nature Reserve. However, validation of interview data with camera trapping data from Houmiling Provincial Nature Reserve, a landscape with few reported sightings, suggests a more optimistic possible status for Peacock-pheasants, which were detected as frequently as Red Junglefowl Gallus gallus and Silver Pheasant Lophura nycthemera during systematic camera trap placement. Hainan Peacock-pheasant sighting rates might be influenced by various factors (e.g. restricted local access to forests), with absolute abundance possibly greater than expected from limited sightings. Conversely, relative across-landscape abundance patterns from LEK are likely to be valid, as similar detection biases exist across surveyed landscapes.

Many protected areas conduct awareness-raising activities to increase local knowledge and support conservation programmes, but the effectiveness of such activities is rarely assessed. Public awareness-raising has been carried out since the early 2000s around Bawangling National Nature Reserve, Hainan, China, to improve conservation knowledge about the Critically Endangered Hainan gibbon Nomascus hainanus, one of the rarest mammals. We conducted 207 interviews in 25 villages around Bawangling National Nature Reserve to evaluate the outcome of previous conservation education, through comparison of variation in local respondent knowledge and attitudes, and specific enquiries about sources of knowledge acquisition. Likelihood of accurate responses to most of our questions regarding the species was positively correlated with local exposure to gibbon-themed billboards and murals, and respondents exhibited greater knowledge about several key conservation indices for gibbons compared to their knowledge about sympatrically occurring rhesus macaques Macaca mulatta. Many respondents specifically reported they knew about local existence, population size, conservation status, and threats to gibbons from past awareness-raising activities, with village education sessions and billboards widely identified as key sources of information. However, other known awareness-raising approaches have had little detectable effect on shaping local conservation awareness. Although educational activities have improved awareness about gibbons and their conservation requirements in relative terms, overall levels of knowledge remain low in many important areas and ongoing improvement of local awareness is still needed, in particular around poorly-understood topics such as gibbon conservation status, rarity and threats, and for socio-demographic groups possessing less conservation knowledge.

Over recent decades, Chinese giant salamanders Andrias spp. have declined dramatically across much of their range. Overexploitation and habitat degradation have been widely cited as the cause of these declines. To investigate the relative contribution of each of these factors in driving the declines, we carried out standardized ecological and questionnaire surveys at 98 sites across the range of giant salamanders in China. We did not find any statistically significant differences between water parameters (temperature, dissolved oxygen, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, salinity, alkalinity, hardness and flow rate) recorded at sites where giant salamanders were detected by survey teams and/or had been recently seen by local respondents, and sites where they were not detected and/or from which they had recently been extirpated. Additionally, we found direct and indirect evidence that the extraction of giant salamanders from the wild is ongoing, including within protected areas. Our results support the hypothesis that the decline of giant salamanders across China has been primarily driven by overexploitation. Data on water parameters may be informative for the establishment of conservation breeding programmes, an initiative recommended for the conservation of these species.

As a label for a distinct category of life, “living fossil” is controversial. The term has multiple definitions, and it is unclear whether the label can be genuinely used to delimit biodiversity. Even taking a purely phylogenetic perspective in which a proxy for the living fossil is evolutionary distinctness (ED), an inconsistency arises: Does it refer to “dead-end” lineages doomed to extinction or “panchronic” lineages that survive through multiple epochs? Recent tree-growth model studies indicate that speciation rates must have been unequally distributed among species in the past to produce the shape of the tree of life. Although an uneven distribution of speciation rates may create the possibility for a distinct group of living fossil lineages, such a grouping could only be considered genuine if extinction rates also show a consistent pattern, be it indicative of dead-end or panchronic lineages. To determine whether extinction rates also show an unequal distribution, we developed a tree-growth model in which the probability of speciation and extinction is a function of a tip’s ED. We simulated thousands of trees in which the ED function for a tip is randomly and independently determined for speciation and extinction rates. We find that simulations in which the most evolutionarily distinct tips have lower rates of speciation and extinction produce phylogenetic trees closest in shape to empirical trees. This implies that a distinct set of lineages with reduced rates of diversification, indicative of a panchronic definition, is required to create the shape of the tree of life.

Species abundance data are of vital importance in paleontology, but fossil accumulations invariably represent a biased subset of original source communities. Efforts to quantify taphonomic biases are typically prevented by a lack of independent data on the ecological composition of prehistoric faunas. However, analysis of the continental Holocene record can provide a rare opportunity for independent calibration of fossil abundance patterns. We analyzed a comprehensive data set available for the Holocene avifauna of Sweden to investigate the relationship between species abundance in the recent fossil and zooarchaeological records and in prehistoric source communities, and to characterize the importance of different ecological factors in determining terrestrial vertebrate fossil abundances. The number of assemblages in which species occurred was compared with modern-day species abundance, annual residence, body mass, and ecological realm. Modern-day abundance is only one of several significant predictors of fossil abundance; the strongest predictor is body mass, and Holocene species abundance can be interpreted as a measure of species abundance in source communities for a given size class only. Our study represents one of the only direct attempts to quantify species abundance biases between fossil faunas and source communities, and has general applicability for a wide range of terrestrial vertebrate faunas.

The Chinese giant salamander Andrias davidianus is endemic to China and is Critically Endangered, largely because of overexploitation for food. This species is an expensive delicacy in China, and a rapidly growing industry to farm the species has developed throughout much of the country, centred on the Qinling Mountain region of Shaanxi Province. During a 2010 workshop on Chinese giant salamander conservation, which involved a range of stakeholders from across China, it became clear that the conservation community knew little about the salamander farming industry and whether it posed actual or potential threats or opportunities for conservation of the Chinese giant salamander. We therefore conducted a series of investigations to understand the industry better. Our results indicate that although farming of Chinese giant salamanders has the potential to be a positive development for conservation by supplying market demand with farmed animals, it is currently more likely to threaten than support conservation of the species, with continued overexploitation and the potential added impacts of infectious disease and genetic pollution arising from farming practices such as movement of animals across the country and the release of untreated farm wastewater and farmed salamanders to the wild.

The Critically Endangered Chinese giant salamander Andrias davidianus, the world's largest amphibian, is severely threatened by unsustainable exploitation of wild individuals. However, field data with which to assess the salamander's status, population trends, or exploitation across its geographical range are limited, and recent field surveys using standard ecological field techniques have typically failed to detect wild individuals. We conducted community-based fieldwork in three national nature reserves (Fanjingshan, Leigongshan and Mayanghe) in Guizhou Province, China, to assess whether local ecological knowledge constitutes a useful tool for salamander conservation. We collected a sample of dated salamander sighting records and associated data from these reserves for comparative assessment of the relative status of salamander populations across the region. Although Fanjingshan and Leigongshan are still priority sites for salamander conservation, few recent sightings were recorded in either reserve, and respondents considered that salamanders had declined locally at both reserves. The species may already be functionally extinct at Mayanghe. Although respondent data on threats to salamanders in Guizhou are more difficult to interpret, overharvesting was the most commonly suggested explanation for salamander declines, and it is likely that the growing salamander farming industry is the primary driver of salamander extraction from Guizhou's reserves. Questionnaire-based surveys can collect novel quantitative data that provide unique insights into the local status of salamander populations, and we advocate wide-scale incorporation of this research approach into future salamander field programmes.

Attenborough's long-beaked echidna Zaglossus attenboroughi is known from a single specimen collected in the Cyclops Mountains of northern Papua in 1961, and has previously been considered to be extremely rare if not already extinct. New fieldwork to investigate the continued survival of Z. attenboroughi was conducted on the north and south slopes of the Cyclops Mountains in May 2007 using community interviews, sign surveys and visual encounter surveys. Many villagers recognized photographs of long-beaked echidnas, were able to describe key biological characteristics of echidnas, and reported several recent sightings below 300 m elevation, referring to the animal as payangko. Although no echidnas were observed during fieldwork, diagnostic echidna feeding signs (imprints of nose pokes) were detected from < 300 m to 1,250 m and possibly up to 1,700 m elevation. These extensive reports and observations confirm that long-beaked echidnas are still present in the Cyclops Mountains, and descriptions provided by local informants strongly suggest that the reports refer to Z. attenboroughi. However, the species remains threatened by human impacts, primarily subsistence hunting and habitat loss. Efforts are now being made to learn more about the relationship of Attenborough's long-beaked echidna to all other Zaglossus species, and a project is being initiated with local communities to monitor sightings and increase awareness of this rare and evolutionarily distinct mammal.

The Hispaniolan solenodon Solenodon paradoxus, one of only two surviving native Hispaniolan land mammals, has declined drastically in Haiti and has only been recorded from the Duchity region of the Massif de la Hotte in recent decades. Previous studies have been pessimistic about the probability of even short-term survival of this relict population, predicting its likely extinction by the start of the 21st century because of a range of anthropogenic threats. However, new surveys (sign surveys and interviews with villagers and subsistence farmers) and the discovery of three dead solenodons confirm the continued survival of the species in the Duchity region, apparently across a greater geographic area than previously recognized. This may reflect a cull on dogs around the Duchity region. Given the lack of any targeted mammal conservation research in Haiti for almost 2 decades, immediate further investigation is required into solenodon distribution, habitat utilization, density, and interaction with introduced predators across the region. The solenodons of the Massif de la Hotte may represent a distinct taxon, making the establishment of an effective research and conservation programme for this population an urgent priority.

Agnostid trilobites are relatively abundant and taxonomically diverse in outer shelf facies of the Yangtze Platform and Jiangnan Transitional Belt regions of the South China Plate. Nine Arenig and Llanvirn species, representing at least five genera or subgenera in the Agnostidae, Diplagnostidae and Metagnostidae, are treated in a taxonomic review of the South Chinese Agnostida, based on new material from the Dawan and Kuniutan formations of W Hubei and the Zitai and Jiuxi formations of N Hunan. The new genus Han is established to incorporate the globally youngest known diplagnostid species. The new species Han solo, Geragnostus (Geragnostus) balanolobus and G. (G.) waldorfstatleri are established. G. carinatus is recognised as being based on inaccurately interpreted material, and is only tentatively retained within Geragnostus. Three further taxa represented by poorly preserved material are left in open nomenclature. The geographic distributions of different agnostid species across the South China Plate, and the endemicity to the palaeoplate displayed by all Arenig–Llanvirn South Chinese species, suggest that these agnostids at least were either benthic or epibenthic.