Deagrarianisation is a global phenomenon with high potential for both carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation. Work on this topic has focused on plant succession and associated plant diversity, but few studies have considered faunal communities, particularly in Africa. We used passive acoustic monitoring to record insectivorous bat communities within forest fragments and former fields under communal land tenure in t...

In the Southern Hemisphere and northern Indian Ocean, there are at least five populations of pygmy blue whales, Balaenoptera musculus brevicauda , residing in the Northwest Indian Ocean (NWIO, Oman), central Indian Ocean (CIO, Sri Lanka), Southwest Indian Ocean (SWIO, Madagascar to Subantarctic), Southeast Indian Ocean (SEIO, Australia to Indonesia), and Southwest Pacific Ocean (SWPO, New Zealand). Each population produces a d...

Animals within social groups respond to costs and benefits of sociality by adjusting the proportion of time they spend in close proximity to other individuals in the group (cohesion). Variation in cohesion between individuals, in turn, shapes important group‐level processes such as subgroup formation and fission–fusion dynamics. Although critical to animal sociality, a comprehensive understanding of the factors influencing coh...

The last 12 months have provided further evidence of the potential for cascading ecological and socio-political crises that were warned of 12 months ago. Then a consensus statement from the Regional Action on Climate Change Symposium warned: “the Earth’s climatic, ecological, and human systems are converging towards a crisis that threatens to engulf global civilization within the lifetimes of children now living.” Since then,...

Aim Forest fragmentation is a major driver of biodiversity loss causing declines in species richness and functional diversity of biotic communities. Bats are essential components of ecosystems and are useful bio‐indicators of habitat disturbance, yet the response and vulnerability of bats to fragmentation have been poorly studied in Africa. We aim to assess the effects of forest biogeographical history and fragmentation on fun...

Needlefishes (Beloniformes) were observed employing a range of stalking and attacking behaviours to attack schools of bait fishes ranging from the use of tactics common to predatory fishes to a novel behaviour: the use of leaping, aerial attacks. These aerial attacks are suggested to serve two purposes: to extend the attack range of the needlefishes and to reduce their prey's potential for evasion. Furthermore, a third purpose...