Hello,
I've only got one paper this week looking at how wildlife movement is affected by the presence of people. But as a bonus, as a way to probe at papers you don't have time to read (and that I haven't reviewed), here's a prompt you can try in your AI tool of choice to find interesting aspects beyond the abstract:
"What are 1-3 key points or aspects of this paper that are not included in the abstract, and might be important but not obvious to someone quickly reading the paper? This could include a key result, an implication of the results, a major limitation in how applicable the results are, etc."
Note that different tools pick different aspects, and the summaries I write are still a little different (I try to include more key results for example). I'm only using these AI tools as a check AFTER I finish reading a paper to see if I missed anything important but not bias my readthrough, but it's not bad for papers you won't otherwise read.
If you know someone who wants to sign up to receive these summaries, they can do so at http://subscribe.sciencejon.com (no need to email me). But Mailerlite just changed their billing structure so I will be periodically removing people who never open these to try and save $.
Here's the study, and the points three different tools picked up on.
WILDLIFE RESPONSE TO PEOPLE:
Oliver et al. 2026 is a nice study looking at how 37 species of large birds and mammals change where they move (measured via GPS collars) in response to human presence (measured via mobile device traffic in 2019 and 2020; typically unavailable but shared during COVID-19). 2/3 of species were affected by people, typically moving less (but with some showing the opposite effect like gray wolves). Most of those species had a stronger response to people in areas w/ less human modification (presumably they were less acclimated to people). So they conclude we need to consider both typical human presence and actual human presence in understanding how wildlife responds. They also note some changes might be beneficial, e.g., for species that eat food from people (like ravens and coyotes).
KEY POINTS FROM AI:
I dramatically shortened the response from each AI tool, keeping just the high level points so you can see the similarities and differences:
ELICIT:
1. The study was only possible b/c high-resolution cell phone data was shared w/ researchers during COVID-19
2. Animals too small to wear a GPS collar were excluded.
3. They couldn't say if animals were helped or harmed by the movement change
COPILOT USING CHATGPT:
1. Most animals moved in smaller areas but some expanded their range under the same pressures.
2. They couldn't say if animals were helped or harmed by the movement change
3. COVID-19 shifted human presence independent of land use, letting them disentangle the two effects.
It snuck in a bonus 4th point: Animals too small to wear a GPS collar were excluded, biasing findings towards bigger spp. tolerant of tagging.
CLAUDE OPUS 4.6:
1. Wilder places are more sensitive to transient human presence.
2. Human activity can produce opposite effects, e.g. coyote range contracted (to avoid being shot/trapped) but raven range expanded (to exploit new food sources).
3. COVID-19 shifted human presence independent of land use, letting them disentangle the two effects.
JF NOTE: The paper text is not clear on this point, but on Copilot's 1st point and Claude's 2nd, from Fig 2A they are referring to the effect of landscape modification, NOT actual human presence. That's an important difference that neither AI tool picked up on b/c the paper's text was ambiguous.
REFERENCES:
Oliver, R. Y., Yanco, S. W., Ellis-Soto, D., Jesmer, B. R., Cohen, J., Gao, S., Patchett, R., Avgar, T., Bildstein, K., Bakner, N. W., Barber, D., Barker, K., Barnes, J. G., Bastille-Rousseau, G., Belant, J. L., Benson, J. F., Bêty, J., Beyer, D. E., Bird, D., … Jetz, W. (2026). Interacting effects of human presence and landscape modification on birds and mammals. Science, 392(6800), 879–884. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adq3396
Sincerely,
Jon
P.s. This picture is from a panoramic coral reef exhibit at the Panometer in Dresden
