Biodiversity is vital for the stability of the planet; its ecosystem services provide essential elements for our survival and well-being. This review analyzes the national biodiversity policies and describes the main strategies for biodiversity conservation in Ecuador, one of the “mega-diverse” countries in the world with the highest species density. It deepens an analysis of in-situ and ex-situ conservation processes. Ecuador has six clear policies for biodiversity conservation. These policies strengthen biodiversity conservation through mechanisms that improve the well-being of wildlife by ensuring human, wildlife and ecosystem health. It promotes actions for the welfare of wildlife, through technical, administrative and legal tools. The National System of Protected Areas, with 60 protected areas, is the most effective in-situ conservation instrument at the country level. Several ex-situ conservation and management means for the conservation of wild species are being utilized, including nurseries, botanical gardens, zoos, germplasm banks, aquariums, species reproduction and rehabilitation centers. Ecuador is making slow progress on ex-situ conservation despite the availability of a sound policy framework, possibly due to financial, infrastructural, and/or technological challenges, and knowledge gaps. We propose fostering international research collaborations and establishing fully funded small-scale captive breeding programs at zoos, aquariums and university research facilities to help recovery of at-risk species of reptiles, amphibians, fish and species beyond Galapagos region. We recommend utilizing citizen science programs to fill the gaps of biodiversity information and increasing efforts to revive the ex-situ conservation strategies in protecting the unique biodiversity of Ecuador.

The illegal wildlife trade is considered one of the major threats to global biodiversity. Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) have been highly valued by various cultures for use in religious and spiritual contexts, as a draft animal, and more recently, as a tourist attraction. Thus, the demand for captive elephants is high. Wild Asian elephants are taken from the wild, often illegally, to maintain these captive populations due to the unviability of captive breeding programs. For the first time, we documented the extent to which wild elephants are being illegally captured and traded in Sri Lanka between January 2008 and December 2018. We collected data from case records maintained by the Sri Lanka court system where the suspects of illegal elephant trade were prosecuted in addition to information gathered by archives and interviews with various stakeholders. We documented 55 cases where elephants were illegally traded. This is probably an underestimate due to the mortality rate of elephants during capture operations, and challenges in collecting data on this highly organized illicit trade. Nearly equal numbers of male and female elephants were traded and more than 50% of them were juveniles, aged ≤5 years. Significantly more elephants were found to be seized in 2014–2015 than in the other time periods combined. We found evidence of the illegal capture of wild elephants from wildlife protected areas and state forests. More importantly, we identified evidence of corruption of wildlife officers, involvement of politicians and other high-ranking personnel in the illegal wildlife trade, and lack of active enforcement of wildlife law as major challenges to overcome if the illegal capture and domestic trade of wild elephants in Sri Lanka are to be halted. Based on our study, we make a series of recommendations that should result in implementing policy to reduce the trafficking of Asian elephants in Sri Lanka and improve the conservation management of the species.

We used existing collection records to summarize the current understanding of freshwater crayfish diversity in Virginia. Virginia includes both Atlantic slope drainages and tributaries of the Tennessee and Ohio Rivers which flow to the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi River. The state’s varied topography produces a wide range of freshwater habitats from mountain-side springs and seeps to rushing mountain streams to warm, turbid rivers and the lentic habitats of the coastal plain. We report distributional patterns of 31 species and one subspecies. About 20% of the species reported are introduced, one native species is federally listed as threatened, and several other taxa are species of conservation concern. A number of yet-to-be-described taxa with highly limited distributions will likely need protection. We hope the data included will prove useful in future efforts to understand the diversity of these fascinating and ecologically important animals in Virginia and will further the resolution of Virginia’s complete crayfish fauna.

The quantification of species diversity is essential in several aspects of ecology, including conservation biology, and as an indicator of the well-being of ecological systems. However, species diversity of the wetland birds in the seasonal reservoirs in the dry zone of Sri Lanka has received very little attention. In the present study, an attempt was made to determine the species diversity of wetland birds of 20 seasonal reservoirs in Anuradhapura and Monaragala Districts during both migratory and non-migratory seasons. A total of 46 species of aquatic birds belonging to 17 families (represent 7 orders) were recorded during the present study in selected seasonal reservoirs in the two districts. Overall, both bird species richness and abundance were higher in Anuradhapura district compared to Monaragala District. However, there were more bird species in both districts during migratory seasons. We have detected significant seasonal differences in species diversity estimated by both the Shannon-Wiener Index (F=3.926; P <0.1) and Simpson’s Index (F=3.718; P <0.1). This suggests that there was a significantly higher diversity of wetland birds during the migratory season. Species-area relationships suggested that the species richness of wetland birds associated with seasonal reservoirs would increase as the reservoir size increases. However, these relationships represented weak correlations (R2 range = 0.331–0.645). Overall our study indicates that seasonal reservoirs in Sri Lanka support a diverse community of wetland birds and provide a strong example for a case of enhancement of biological diversity through human activities by creating artificial habitats.

Desert springs, which harbor diverse and endemic invertebrate assemblages, are often used as refuge habitats for protected fish species. Additionally, many of these springs have been colonized by invasive fish species. However, the potential impacts of recently established fish populations on invertebrate communities in desert springs have been relatively unexplored. We conducted a mesocosm experiment to assess the impact of both protected and invasive fish on community structure of spring-dwelling invertebrates focusing on zooplankton. Experimental populations of spring zooplankton communities were established and randomly assigned to one of three treatments, (1) invasive western mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis); (2) endangered Mohave tui chub (Siphateles bicolor mohavensis); and (3) fishless control. Final populations of zooplankton and fish were sampled, sorted, identified and counted. The treatment differences of zooplankton communities were analyzed by comparing the densities of six major zooplankton taxa. Further, we performed nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) to visualize the patterns of zooplankton community assemblages. Four zooplankton taxa, crustacean nauplii, cladocera, calanoid and cyclopoid copepods had significantly lower densities in fish treatments compared to fishless control. Overall, invasive mosquitofish caused a 78.8% reduction in zooplankton density, while Mohave tui chub caused a 65.1% reduction. Both protected and invasive fish had similar effects on zooplankton except for cladocerans where tui chub caused a 60% reduction in density, whereas mosquitofish virtually eliminated cladocerans. The presence of fish also had a significant effect on zooplankton community structure due to population declines and local extirpations presumably due to fish predation. This work shows that conservation-translocations undertaken to conserve protected fish species may impact spring-dwelling invertebrate communities, and such impacts are similar to impacts due to colonization by invasive fish species.