近几十年来,非洲大型食肉动物经历了巨大的范围和人口下降。尽管受威胁物种的保护规划和管理需要准确评估种群状况和监测趋势,有证据表明,生物多样性监测可能不是均匀分布的,也不是在最需要的地方进行的。这里,我们提供了对过去二十年(2000-2020年)发布的非洲大型食肉动物种群评估的首次系统综述,调查研究工作的趋势并确定知识差距。我们使用广义线性模型(GLM)和广义线性混合模型(GLMMs)来识别分类和地理偏差,并调查了与土地利用类型和作者国籍相关的偏见。研究工作明显偏向狮子(Pantheraleo)和条纹鬣狗(Hyaenahyaena),尽管后者是大陆范围最广的物种。非洲野狗(Lycaonpictus)在研究关注方面也表现出负面偏见,虽然部分原因是其相对有限的分布。一个物种的国家评估数量与其在该国的地理范围密切相关。人口评估偏向南部和东部非洲,尤其是南非和肯尼亚。北方,西方,和中部非洲的代表性普遍不足。大多数研究是在政府管理下的摄影旅游保护区进行的,而非保护区和战利品狩猎区受到的关注较少。在南非以外,几乎一半的研究(41%)不包括来自研究国家的作者,这表明在射程州存在重要的能力建设机会。总的来说,非洲大部分地区在文学中的代表性仍然不足,在大多数物种和大多数国家都有进一步研究的机会。我们为旨在克服已确定的偏见的行动提出建议,并为研究人员提供,从业者,和政策制定者的优先事项,以帮助告知未来的研究和监测议程。
African large carnivores have undergone significant range and population declines over recent decades. Although conservation planning and the management of threatened species requires accurate assessments of population status and monitoring of trends, there is evidence that biodiversity monitoring may not be evenly distributed or occurring where most needed. Here, we provide the first systematic
review of African large carnivore population assessments published over the last two decades (2000-2020), to investigate trends in research effort and identify knowledge gaps. We used generalised linear models (GLMs) and generalised linear mixed models (GLMMs) to identify taxonomic and geographical biases, and investigated biases associated with land use type and author nationality. Research effort was significantly biased towards lion (Panthera leo) and against striped hyaena (Hyaena hyaena), despite the latter being the species with the widest continental range. African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) also exhibited a negative bias in research attention, although this was partly explained by its relatively restricted distribution. The number of country assessments for a species was significantly positively associated with its geographic range in that country. Population assessments were biased towards southern and eastern Africa, particularly South Africa and Kenya. Northern, western, and central Africa were generally under-represented. Most studies were carried out in photographic tourism protected areas under government management, while non-protected and trophy hunting areas received less attention. Outside South Africa, almost half of studies (41%) did not include authors from the study country, suggesting that significant opportunities exist for capacity building in range states. Overall, large parts of Africa remain under-represented in the literature, and opportunities exist for further research on most species and in most countries. We develop recommendations for actions aimed at overcoming the identified biases and provide researchers, practitioners, and policymakers with priorities to help inform future research and monitoring agendas.