Centre for Statistics inEcology, Environment

and ConservationReport 2017

University of Cape Town

SEEC ANNUAL REPORT 2017, UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN

Rondebosch 7701, South Africa.

http://www.seec.uct.ac.za/https://twitter.com/SEEC_UCThttps://www.facebook.com/SEEC.UCT

Photographs: c©2017 Dominic Henry

Published 4 April 2018

Table of Contents

1 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

1.1 Highlights of 2017 5

1.2 The team 61.2.1 Core team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61.2.2 Advisory board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61.2.3 Postdocs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61.2.4 Postgraduate students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71.2.5 Affiliates and partners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2 Partners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2.1 Within UCT 8

2.2 National 8

2.3 International 8

3 Courses and workshops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

3.1 STA2007/STA5014 10

3.2 Workshops 10

3.3 Stats Toolbox Seminars 11

4 Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

4.1 Publication summary 12

4.2 Data for Climate Action Challenge 12

4

4.3 SEEC student symposium 13

4.4 Social Media 13

5 Conferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

5.1 Presentations 14

5.2 Posters 15

6 Publication list 2017 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

1. Summary

1.1 Highlights of 2017

The pressures on biodiversity and the environment are steadily increasing. At the same time, datathat can help us quantify changes and understand the processes that led to these changes arebecoming available at an ever faster pace. Just as decisions affecting the functioning of ourecosystems are becoming ever more consequential, we also increasingly gain the ability to makesuch decisions in an informed way. The centre for Statistics in Ecology, Environment andConservation works at the intersection between statistics, ecology and global change. Our aim is tobridge these fields and to ensure that the most important environmental questions are addressed withcutting edge statistical methods, and we have an overarching interest in methods for structureddecision making. 2017 has again been a busy and highly successful year for us and this reportprovides a brief summary. Here are some highlights:

• We authored publications in top journals, including Science, Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Science and Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

• Jasper Slingsby led a submission to the Data for Climate Action (D4CA) challenge under theUN Global Pulse programme and won an award.

• We led a large funding application to the Alliance for Collaboration on Climate and EarthSystems Science (ACCESS) and were successful.

• Natasha Karenyi obtained a permanent academic position at UCT and remains part of theSEEC core team in her new capacity. Vernon Visser and Tess Gridley received an NRF ratingfor the first time.

• Several of our postgraduate students handed in and graduated.

6 Chapter 1. Summary

1.2 The team1.2.1 Core team

Res Altwegg UCT, Statistical SciencesDavid Borchers St Andrews, CREEMAllan Clark UCT, Statistical SciencesJonathan Colville South African National Biodiversity InstituteGreg Distiller UCT, Statistical SciencesIan Durbach UCT, Statistical SciencesBirgit Erni UCT, Statistical SciencesAstrid Jarre UCT, Biological SciencesSue Kuyper UCT, Animal Demography UnitDavid Maphisa South African National Biodiversity InstituteMzabalazo Ngwenya UCT, Statistical SciencesJasper Slingby South African Environmental Observation NetworkVernon Visser UCT, Statistical SciencesHenning Winker Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry

1.2.2 Advisory boardSEEC has an advisory board consisting of Bob Scholes (University of the Witwatersrand), JohnDonaldson (South African National Biodiversity Institute), Francesca Little (UCT, HOD StatisticalSciences), Muthama Muasya (UCT, HOD Biological Sciences), and Anton Le Roex (UCT, Dean ofthe Science Faculty).

1.2.3 Postdocs

Marc Burman Biological SciencesTess Gridley Statistical SciencesDominic Henry Statistical SciencesNatasha Karenyi Statistical SciencesPete Laver Biological SciencesAnnalie Melin Statistical SciencesTheoni Photopoulou Statistical Sciences and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan UniversityPetra Sumasgutner Biological SciencesChevonne Reynolds Biological SciencesFlorian Weller Biological Sciences

1.2 The team 7

1.2.4 Postgraduate students

PhDGordon Botha Statistical SciencesFrancisco Cervantes Peralta Statistical SciencesGreg Duckworth Statistical SciencesPauline Glotin Biological SciencesMorgan Martin Biological SciencesAlecia Nickles Statistical SciencesAriella Rink Statistical SciencesMatthew Rogan Biological SciencesKim Stevens Biological SciencesJessleena Suri Biological SciencesZoe Woodgate Biological Sciences

MScFrancois Becker Statistical Sciences (graduated in 2017)Danielle Boyd Statistical Sciences (graduating April 2018)Gciniwe Dlamini Statistical SciencesQobo Dube Statistical Sciences (graduating April 2018)Samantha Grusd Biological Sciences (graduated in 2017)Peter Ivey Statistical SciencesEmmanuel Kabuga Statistical SciencesMaphale Stella Matlala Statistical SciencesLeila Nefdt Biological SciencesJenicca Poongavanan Statistical SciencesMegan Slack Biological Sciences

1.2.5 Affiliates and partners

Fitsum Abadi New Mexico State UniversityIain Macdonald UCT, Actuarial ScienceSilvia Mecenero South African National Biodiversity InstituteGuy Midgley Stellenbosch UniversityEtienne Pienaar UCT, Statistical SciencesDeena Pillay UCT, Biological SciencesPeter Ryan UCT, Biological SciencesLes Underhill UCT, Biological SciencesMelvin Varhugese UCT, Statistical Sciences

2. Partners

We have a strong network of partners at three levels: within UCT, nationally, and internationally.

2.1 Within UCTWithin UCT, SEEC has close links to a number of other research groups. Vernon Visser is a ResearchFellow of the African Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI). Res Altwegg held an ACDIResearch Chair from 2014 to 2016 and has maintained close links since then. Astrid Jarre is affiliatedwith the Marine Research Institute (MARE). SEEC affiliated members Peter Ryan and Les Underhillare directors of the Percy FitzPatrick Institute for African Ornithology and the Animal DemographyUnit, respectively. SEEC members also collaborate with a number of researchers in BiologicalSciences, particularly with the Plant Conservation Unit.

2.2 NationalA key partner outside UCT is the South African National Biodiversity Institute. Two of their scientists,Jonathan Colville and David Maphisa, are SEEC core members. South African EnvironmentalObservation Network’s Jasper Slingby is a SEEC core member. Guy Midgley from StellenboschUniversity’s Department of Botany and Zoology is a SEEC affiliate. SEEC has several ongoingcollaborations, and has signed a memorandum of understanding, with the Centre for InvasionBiology at the University of Stellenbosch. SEEC members collaborate with Peter Taylor and StefanFoord of the University of Venda. We work with key conservation organisations: Cape Nature, theEndangeredWildlife Trust, and BirdLife South Africa on various projects.

2.3 InternationalInternationally, we collaborate with some of the leading groups in our field. One of them is theCentre for Research into Ecological and Environmental Modelling (CREEM) at the University of

2.3 International 9

St Andrews. David Borchers from CREEM is also a SEEC core member. We are working withJim Nichols from the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center of the US Geological Survey on analysingbird atlas data using occupancy models. We have an ongoing collaboration with Colin Beale at theUniversity of York on analysing spatial biodiversity data.

3. Courses and workshops

3.1 STA2007/STA5014This course was developed by SEEC members, Birgit Erni, Theoni Photopoulou, Res Altweggand Greg Distiller, in 2015 as an online course and is a welcome addition to the curriculum ofbiology and statistics students. The course aims to equip students with practical experience andskills in analysing data and using some statistical techniques frequently used in the sciences. Theskills include designing experiments, choosing appropriate statistical methods for visual display andstatistical modelling of data, model checking, interpretation and reporting of statistical results, andunderstanding limitations of statistical methods and data. Even though this course forms part of ourregular departmental teaching duty, we regard it as an important piece in our plans to train statisticalecologists. The course trains 30-50 undergraduate students annually and the first cohort of studentstrained since the course was put online is now starting their MSc degrees.

3.2 WorkshopsDavid Borchers, Janine Illian (CREEM, St Andrews University) and Fabian Bachl (University ofEdinburgh) ran a three day workshop titled “Spatial Point Process Models for Ecological SurveyData with INLA”. The course covered a wide range of topics including: spatial point process modelsin ecology; spatial smoothing in discrete and continuous space; spatiotemporal models and; use ofmarked Poisson processes in ecological surveys. The various models were implemented using the

3.3 Stats Toolbox Seminars 11

R-INLA package. The workshop took place at the South African National Biodiversity Institute inCape Town from 11 to 13 January 2017. The course was well attended with participants comingfrom a wide range of institutions. SEEC hosted the workshop and the visiting researchers.

In October and November 2017, Ian Durbach ran two 3-day workshops called Machine Learningfor Ecology, providing a practical introduction to the use of machine learning in ecology andcovering methods for classifying images and audio (random forests, feed-forward and convolutionalneural networks). The first workshop took place at the Center for Ecological Sciences at the IndianInstitute of Science in Bangalore, India; the second was a local event in Cape Town, hosted by theAfrican Institute for Mathematical Sciences. The two workshops attracted 35 people from diversebackgrounds, including interns at environmental NGOs, MSc and PhD students in ecology andstatistics, and government employees.

3.3 Stats Toolbox SeminarsThe aim of the SEEC Stats Toolbox seminars is to provide a basic introduction to researchersworking in ecology, environmental science and conservation, who may otherwise be unaware ofnew developments or who might need a refresher in established statistical methods. The seminarsalso give the SEEC members the opportunity to showcase their field of expertise and present a widerange of techniques and R packages. The 2017 seminar series was packed with a wide variety ofinteresting topics. The seminars were well attended and we were able to extend the reach and impactof the talks by using an online live streaming platform to allow for people located off-campus tojoin in. We had researchers from many institutions and universities across South Africa followingthe talks online. The slides, R code and resources were all uploaded onto the SEEC website andform an important repository for future researchers who wish to become familiar with the methodspresented in the seminars. The seminars will continue in 2018 and with a full schedule of interestingtalks already lined up. Below is a list title and speakers from last year’s talks.

Animal movement modelling with moveHMM Theoni PhotopoulouClassification and regression trees Ian DurbachExperimental and survey design Birgit Erni and Res AltweggHidden Markov models for time series Iain MacDonaldIntroduction to multivariate analyses Natasha KarenyiSpatial Capture-Recapture modelling Greg DistillerSpatial Occupancy models Allan ClarkState-Space models Henning Winker

4. Research

4.1 Publication summaryIn 2017 SEEC published a total of 46 papers. This equates to 3.28 publications per SEEC coremember. The mean impact factor of journals in which SEEC members published was 3.81; therewere seven papers in journals with an impact factor greater than 5 and one paper in Science with animpact factor of 37.21.

4.2 Data for Climate Action ChallengeJasper Slingsby (in partnership with Adam Wilson and Glenn Moncrieff) won an award at the UnitedNations Data for Climate Action Challenge (www.dataforclimateaction.org) contest for a prototypenear-real time monitoring tool that reports on the state and changes in vegetation based on satelliteobservations. Jasper’s submission, the Ecosystem Monitoring for Management Application (EMMA),won the Thematic award for Climate Mitigation for addressing UN Sustainable Development Goals12 (Climate Action) and 15 (Life on Land), among others.

The application uses MODIS NDVI data to detect abnormal changes in the greenness of Fynbosvegetation in near-real time. By detecting potential threats to the ecosystem in near-real time, thetool can inform the responses of conservation authorities, citizen scientists and policymakers whilesimultaneously collecting data for long-term ecological research.

Near-real time vegetation change detection tools are largely limited to forests, with few tools fornon-forest ecosystems such as the shrublands, woodlands and grasslands that dominate South Africaand much of the rest of the globe. The team also developed a prototype smartphone application toaid field inspections by navigating users to locations highlighted by EMMA to investigate impacts,

4.3 SEEC student symposium 13

and allowing them to map other locations where they spot threats to ecosystems.

4.3 SEEC student symposiumThe annual SEEC Student Symposium for 2017 was filled with interesting and exciting research vary-ing from new statistical methods to answering ecological, conservation and management questions.For the first time we awarded a best student presentation prize which was won by Matt Rogan for hispresentation on the occupancy-density relationship for leopards in southern Africa. We had a totalof 17 excellent talks from students, postdocs and staff. Once again staff and postdocs speed talksprovided a well-rounded view of the research being carried out in SEEC. The plenary speaker thisyear was a SEEC collaborator from Stellenbosch University, Dr John Measey who enthralled us withthe journey from data collection to decision-making in frog conservation. Dr Measey collaborateswith SEEC on acoustic survey methodologies.

Hosting the Symposium in the Postgraduate Student Room in the Otto Beit building made thesymposium very accessible to UCT staff and students as well as our collaborators. This year wealso live-streamed the symposium through our Adobe Connect meeting room at the request of someof our researchers who could not attend. Although this was done on very short notice, 11 peopleviewed the symposium remotely including researchers from Stellenbosch University. We plan tocontinue to live-stream the symposium in future due to the interest shown by our researchers andcollaborators. Thanks to Sue Kuyper and Vernon Visser for organizing the symposium, and to all thespeakers for making it a success.

4.4 Social MediaOur two social media platforms, Twitter and Facebook, have helped raise SEEC’s profile locallyas well as internationally. We post news about our research activities, news of members joining orleaving the group, our publications and we also retweet relevant science news. While our Facebookpage is mainly used by individuals to follow our activities, our Twitter account is also followed byjournals, funding bodies and research groups. Social media is a cheap and easy but hugely effectiveway of communicating our presence and identity.

5. Conferences

5.1 Presentations1. Altwegg, R. and J.D. Nichols. Invited plenary speaker. Occupancy models for bird atlas data.

EURING Analytical Conference. 7 July 2017. Barcelona, Spain.2. Bestley, S., Jonsen, I., Langrock, R., Michelot, T., Photopoulou, T., Thygesen, U., and

Patterson, T. Modelling animal movement and prediction: Modelling animal behaviour in achanging climate. International Bio-logging Symposium 6. 25-29 September 2017. Konstanz,Germany.

3. Cervantes, F. An approximation to the error in the location of bird flights observed fromvantage points. Birds and Renewable Energy Forum. Hosted by BirdLife South Africa andEndangered Wildlife Trust in September 2017. Johannesburg, South Africa.

4. Cervantes, F. Are vantage points useful to study movements of soaring birds? Statistics inEcology and Environmental Monitoring. 6 – 8 December 2017. Queenstown, New Zealand.

5. Durbach, I., Nandi, D., Balakrishnan, R., Burrell, S., and Dlamini, G. Methods for identifyingindividual field crickets from their calls. International Bioacoustics Council (IBAC) conferencemeeting. 8 -13 October 2017. Haridwar, India.

6. Elwen, S.H., Rashley, G.L., James, B., McGovern, B., Bastian, A. and Gridley, T. Mark-recapture using acoustic labels - a case study involving wild bottlenose dolphin (Tursiopstruncatus) signature whistles. 8 – 11 March 2017. Genova, Italy.

7. Gridley, T., Rashley, G.L., James, B., McGovern, B., and Elwen, S.H. Speaking in stereo -Evidence of two voice signature whistle production in common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiopstruncatus). 45th Annual Symposium of the European Association for Aquatic Mammals. 8 –11 March 2017. Genova, Italy.

8. Gridley, T., Silva, M. and Elwen, S. H. Social sounds from ’super-groups’ of humpback whales(Megaptera novaeangliae) from South Africa. International Bioacoustics Council (IBAC)conference meeting. 8 -13 October 2017. Haridwar, India.

9. Kock, A.A., O’Riain, M.J., Photopoulou, T., Durbach, I., Mauff, K., Meyer, M., Kotze, D.,Lombard, A., and Griffiths, C. Movement patterns and site preference of white sharks along the

5.2 Posters 15

inshore of False Bay. Special Session: Tracking Marine Top Predators for The Identificationof Ecologically Important Areas. 4th July 2017. South African Marine Science Symposium,Boardwalk Convention Centre, Port Elizabeth. Talk delivered by Theoni Photopoulou

10. Photopoulou, T. Keynote speaker in thematic session "E2- Moves: From individual movementsto eco-evolutionary consequences/dynamics" at the British Ecological Society Annual Meeting.11-14 December 2017. Ghent, Belgium.

11. Photopoulou,T., Ferreira, I.M., Kasuya, T., Best, P.B., and Marsh, M. Evidence for a postre-productive phase in female false killer whales Pseudorca crassidens. South African MarineScience Symposium. 5th July 2017. Boardwalk Convention Centre, Port Elizabeth.

12. Rogan, M. The occupancy-density relationship for leopards in South Africa. South AfricanWildlife Management Association Annual Symposium. 10 - 14 September 2017. Goudini,South Africa.

5.2 Posters1. Jones, E.L., Bakka, H.C., Illian, J.B., Photopoulou, T., Aarts, G., and Brasseur., S. Characteris-

ing species distributions from individual tracking data. International Bio-logging Symposium6. 25-29 September 2017. Konstanz, Germany.

2. Martin, M.J., Elwen, S. H. and Gridley, T. A quantitative description of the vocal repertoire ofwild Heaviside’s dolphins (Cephalorhynchus heavisidii). International Bioacoustics Council(IBAC) conference meeting. 8 -13 October 2017. Haridwar, India.

3. Photopoulou, T., Kock, A.A., Altwegg, R., O’Riain, M.J., Michelot, T., and Borchers, D.Modelling movement patterns of great white sharks using acoustic detections. InternationalBio-logging Symposium 6. 25-29 September 2017. Konstanz, Germany.

6. Publication list 2017

[1] AIELLO-LAMMENS, M. E., SLINGSBY, J. A., MEROW, C., MOLLMANN, H. K., EUSTON-BROWN, D., JONES, C. S., AND SILANDER, J. A. 2017. Processes of community assembly inan environmentally heterogeneous, high biodiversity region. Ecography 40:561–576.

[2] ALTWEGG, R., VISSER, V., BAILEY, L. D., AND ERNI, B. 2017. Learning from single extremeevents. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 372:20160141.

[3] BARNARD, P., ALTWEGG, R., EBRAHIM, I., AND UNDERHILL, L. G. 2017. Early warningsystems for biodiversity in southern Africa–how much can citizen science mitigate imperfectdata? Biological Conservation 208:183–188.

[4] BARSHEP, Y., ERNI, B., UNDERHILL, L. G., AND ALTWEGG, R. 2017. Identifying ecologicaland life-history drivers of population dynamics of wetland birds in South Africa. Global Ecologyand Conservation 12:96–107.

[5] BONEBRAKE, T. C., BROWN, C. J., BELL, J. D., BLANCHARD, J. L., CHAUVENET, A.,CHAMPION, C., CHEN, I.-C., CLARK, T. D., COLWELL, R. K., DANIELSEN, F., ET AL. 2018.Managing consequences of climate-driven species redistribution requires integration of ecology,conservation and social science. Biological Reviews 93:284–305.

[6] CANAVAN, S., RICHARDSON, D. M., VISSER, V., LE ROUX, J. J., VORONTSOVA, M. S., AND

WILSON, J. R. 2017. The global distribution of bamboos: assessing correlates of introductionand invasion. AoB Plants 9.

[7] COWLING, R. M., BRADSHAW, P. L., COLVILLE, J. F., AND FOREST, F. 2017. Levyns’law: explaining the evolution of a remarkable longitudinal gradient in Cape plant diversity.Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa 72:184–201.

[8] CUMMING, G. S., HENRY, D. A., AND REYNOLDS, C. 2017. A framework for testingassumptions about foraging scales, body mass, and niche separation using telemetry data. Ecologyand evolution 7:5276–5284.

17

[9] DURBACH, I., MERVEN, B., AND MCCALL, B. 2017. Expert elicitation of autocorrelated timeseries with application to e3 (energy-environment-economic) forecasting models. EnvironmentalModelling & Software 88:93–105.

[10] ELWEN, S. H., MCGOVERN, B., TREGENZA, N., AND GRIDLEY, T. 2016. Impacts ofacoustic identity pinger tags on bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). In Proceedings ofMeetings on Acoustics 4ENAL, volume 27, p. 010040. ASA.

[11] ERBS, F., ELWEN, S. H., AND GRIDLEY, T. 2017. Automatic classification of whistles fromcoastal dolphins of the southern African subregion. The Journal of the Acoustical Society ofAmerica 141:2489–2500.

[12] FERNÁNDEZ-LLAMAZARES, Á., GARCIA, R. A., DÍAZ-REVIRIEGO, I., CABEZA, M.,PYHÄLÄ, A., AND REYES-GARCÍA, V. 2017. An empirically tested overlap between indigenousand scientific knowledge of a changing climate in Bolivian Amazonia. Regional EnvironmentalChange 17:1673–1685.

[13] FROESE, R., DEMIREL, N., CORO, G., KLEISNER, K. M., AND WINKER, H. 2017a.Estimating fisheries reference points from catch and resilience. Fish and Fisheries 18:506–526.

[14] FROESE, R., WINKER, H., GASCUEL, D., AND PAULY, D. 2017b. How can we reduce theimpact of fishing? Science Journal for Kids 2017:1–4.

[15] GEERTS, S., ROSSENRODE, T., IRLICH, U. M., AND VISSER, V. 2017. Emerging ornamentalplant invaders in urban areas - Centranthus ruber in Cape Town, South Africa as a case study.Invasive Plant Science and Management 10:322–331.

[16] HUGO, S. AND ALTWEGG, R. 2017. The second Southern African Bird Atlas Project: Causesand consequences of geographical sampling bias. Ecology and evolution 7:6839–6849.

[17] HUI, C., RICHARDSON, D. M., AND VISSER, V. 2017. Ranking of invasive spread throughurban green areas in the world’s 100 most populous cities. Biological Invasions 19:3527–3539.

[18] KATSIKOPOULOS, K. V., DURBACH, I. N., AND STEWART, T. J. 2017. When should we usesimple decision models? A synthesis of various research strands. Omega .

[19] LEE, A. T., ALTWEGG, R., AND BARNARD, P. 2017. Estimating conservation metricsfrom atlas data: the case of southern African endemic birds. Bird Conservation International27:323–336.

[20] LEOS-BARAJAS, V., PHOTOPOULOU, T., LANGROCK, R., PATTERSON, T. A., WATANABE,Y. Y., MURGATROYD, M., AND PAPASTAMATIOU, Y. P. 2017. Analysis of animal accelerometerdata using hidden Markov models. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 8:161–173.

[21] LOCKERBIE, E., COLL, M., SHANNON, L., AND JARRE, A. 2017a. The use of indicatorsfor decision support in northwestern Mediterranean Sea fisheries. Journal of Marine Systems174:64–77.

[22] LOCKERBIE, E. M., LYNAM, C. P., SHANNON, L. J., AND JARRE, A. 2017b. Applying adecision tree framework in support of an ecosystem approach to fisheries: IndiSeas indicators inthe North Sea. ICES Journal of Marine Science .

18 Chapter 6. Publication list 2017

[23] MALULEKE, T., JACOBS, D. S., AND WINKER, H. 2017. Environmental correlates ofgeographic divergence in a phenotypic trait: A case study using bat echolocation. Ecology andevolution 7:7347–7361.

[24] MAPHISA, D. H., SMIT-ROBINSON, H., UNDERHILL, L. G., AND ALTWEGG, R. 2017.Management factors affecting densities of common grassland birds of high elevation grasslandsof eastern South Africa: Ingula as a case study. Avian Research 8:5.

[25] MEASEY, G. J., STEVENSON, B. C., SCOTT, T., ALTWEGG, R., AND BORCHERS, D. L.2017. Counting chirps: acoustic monitoring of cryptic frogs. Journal of Applied Ecology54:894–902.

[26] MELIN, A., GRACE, O., DUCKWORTH, G., DONALDSON, J., AND MILNER-GULLAND,E. 2017. Social and ecological characteristics of an expanding natural resource industry: Aloeharvesting in South Africa. Economic botany 71:58–74.

[27] MICHELOT, T., LANGROCK, R., BESTLEY, S., JONSEN, I. D., PHOTOPOULOU, T., AND

PATTERSON, T. A. 2017. Estimation and simulation of foraging trips in land-based marinepredators. Ecology 98:1932–1944.

[28] MUTUMI, G. L., JACOBS, D. S., AND WINKER, H. 2017. The relative contribution ofdrift and selection to phenotypic divergence: A test case using the horseshoe bats Rhinolophussimulator and Rhinolophus swinnyi. Ecology and evolution 7:4299–4311.

[29] PARKER, D., KERWATH, S., NÆSJE, T., ARENDSE, C., KEULDER-STENEVIK, F., HUTCH-INGS, K., CLARK, B., WINKER, H., COWLEY, P., AND ATTWOOD, C. 2017. When plenty isnot enough: an assessment of the white stumpnose (Rhabdosargus globiceps) fishery of SaldanhaBay, South Africa. African Journal of Marine Science 39:153–166.

[30] PECL, G. T., ARAÚJO, M. B., BELL, J. D., BLANCHARD, J., BONEBRAKE, T. C., CHEN,I.-C., CLARK, T. D., COLWELL, R. K., DANIELSEN, F., EVENGÅRD, B., ET AL. 2017.Biodiversity redistribution under climate change: Impacts on ecosystems and human well-being.Science 355:eaai9214.

[31] PHOTOPOULOU, T., FERREIRA, I. M., BEST, P. B., KASUYA, T., AND MARSH, H. 2017. Ev-idence for a postreproductive phase in female false killer whales Pseudorca crassidens. Frontiersin zoology 14:30.

[32] POWELL, R., BOATWRIGHT, J., YOUNG, A., COLVILLE, J., KLAK, C., AND MAGEE, A.2017. Hotbeds of diversity in the stone plant genus Conophytum (Ruschioideae, Aizoaceae).South African Journal of Botany p. 364.

[33] REMISIEWICZ, M., TREE, A. J., UNDERHILL, L. G., AND BURMAN, M. S. 2017. Age-specific variation in relationship between moult and pre-migratory fuelling in Wood SandpipersTringa glareola in southern Africa. Ibis 159:91–102.

[34] REYNOLDS, C., CUMMING, G. S., VILÀ, M., AND GREEN, A. J. 2017. Birds as key vectorsfor the dispersal of some alien species: Further thoughts. Diversity and Distributions 23:577–580.

[35] REYNOLDS, C. AND RYAN, P. G. 2018. Micro-plastic ingestion by waterbirds from contami-nated wetlands in South Africa. Marine Pollution Bulletin 126:330–333.

19

[36] ROBERSON, L., ATTWOOD, C., WINKER, H., COCKROFT, A., AND VAN ZYL, D. 2017.Potential application of baited remote underwater video to survey abundance of west coast rocklobster Jasus lalandii. Fisheries Management and Ecology 24:49–61.

[37] ROUX, M., WILKIN, P., BALKWILL, K., BOATWRIGHT, J. S., BYTEBIER, B., FILER, D.,KLAK, C., KLOPPER, R. R., KOEKEMOER, M., LIVERMORE, L., ET AL. 2017. Producing aplant diversity portal for south africa. Taxon 66:421–431.

[38] SCHOLTZ, R., POLO, J., FUHLENDORF, S., AND DUCKWORTH, G. 2017. Land coverdynamics influence distribution of breeding birds in the great plains, usa. Biological Conservation209:323–331.

[39] SLINGSBY, J. A. 2017. The GEO Handbook on Biodiversity Observation Networks. AfricanJournal of Range and Forage Science 34:227–228.

[40] SLINGSBY, J. A., MEROW, C., AIELLO-LAMMENS, M., ALLSOPP, N., HALL, S., MOLL-MANN, H. K., TURNER, R., WILSON, A. M., AND SILANDER, J. A. 2017. Intensifying postfireweather and biological invasion drive species loss in a mediterranean-type biodiversity hotspot.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences p. 201619014.

[41] STRYDOM, M., VELDTMAN, R., NGWENYA, M. Z., AND ESLER, K. J. 2017. InvasiveAustralian Acacia seed banks: Size and relationship with stem diameter in the presence ofgall-forming biological control agents. PloS one 12:e0181763.

[42] TATE, G., SUMASGUTNER, P., KOESLAG, A., AND AMAR, A. 2017. Pair complementarityinfluences reproductive output in the polymorphic Black Sparrowhawk Accipiter melanoleucus.Journal of Avian Biology 48:387–398.

[43] TREURNICHT, M., COLVILLE, J. F., JOPPA, L. N., HUYSER, O., AND MANNING, J. 2017.Counting complete? Finalising the plant inventory of a global biodiversity hotspot. PeerJ 5:e2984.

[44] VAN VELDEN, J. L., ALTWEGG, R., SHAW, K., AND RYAN, P. G. 2017. Movement patternsand survival estimates of Blue Cranes in the Western Cape. Ostrich 88:33–43.

[45] VISSER, V., WILSON, J. R., CANAVAN, K., CANAVAN, S., FISH, L., MAITRE, D. L.,NÄNNI, I., MASHAU, C., O’CONNOR, T. G., IVEY, P., ET AL. 2017. Grasses as invasive plantsin South Africa revisited: Patterns, pathways and management. Bothalia-African Biodiversity &Conservation 47:1–29.

[46] VONESH, J., MCCOY, M., ALTWEGG, R., LANDI, P., AND MEASEY, J. 2017. Functionalresponses can’t unify invasion ecology. Biological invasions 19:1673–1676.