Social network analysis and the implications for Pontocaspian biodiversity conservation in Romania and Ukraine: A comparative study

The qualitative data showed that WWF Romania and WWF Ukraine were actively involved in the conservation of sturgeon species (S3 Table) through the enforcement of conservation laws and awareness raising [17]. They had large number of volunteers in both countries and some- times brought the otherwise disconnected stakeholder organizations together for joint conser- vation action. Their work, however, mostly focused on charismatic PC species and the wider PC taxa was absent from their conservation agenda. Stakeholder group connectivity Across the Romanian network, different stakeholder categories had various tie densities, but connectedness was not significantly higher than random expectation indicating the absence of network homophily (Table 4). In Ukraine, strongly connected academic institutions were found with a significantly higher within group density value than expected by chance suggest- ing high levels of connectedness within this group [17]. Most relations among stakeholder cat- egories in Romania were collaboration relations, with the exception of links among academic and governmental organizations, which mostly consisted of knowledge transfer (Table 4). When in contact, academic institutions requested research permits from governmental organi- zations and reported on study results (theme ‘permit request’). Additionally, governmental organizations were found to regularly request environmental and biodiversity data from aca- demic organizations for reporting to the EU and international treaties (themes ‘biodiversity

data’ and ‘environmental data’). Some of the links among these stakeholder groups were insuf- ficient due to political constraints, institutional turnover, and/or lack of funding (Table 4). Nongovernmental organizations were marginally involved in both Romanian and Ukrai- nian networks. In Romania, NGOs were significantly less connected to the academic institu- tions than expected by chance and had no PC biodiversity related links among themselves (Table 4). In Ukraine, NGOs were also significantly less connected to academic organizations and had only two PC biodiversity related links among themselves [17]. Marginal involvement of NGOs in Romania has been observed in a previous study in the broader conservation Table 4. Stakeholder group relations. Category (No. ties) Density (%) No. ties strong/ weak Insufficient interactions (No. mentioning) Collaboration relations (No. mentioning) Communication relations (No. mentioning) Gov-Gov (6) 30 2/4 NA Conservation planning (4) Environmental data (2) Commercial fishing (2) Acad-Acad (21) 29 14/7 Lack of funding (7) Projects (14) Biodiversity data (12) Research (13) NGO-NGO (0) 0� NA NA NA NA Gov-NGO (8) 14 6/2 Political constraint (2) Sturgeon conservation (4) Expert knowledge (2) Projects (2) Environmental data (1) Commercial fishing (2) Acad-Gov (26) 14 15/11 Political constraint (4) Projects (9) Permit request (10) Institutional turnover (3) Conservation planning (5) Biodiversity data (6) Lack of funding (2) Commercial fishing (3) Environmental data (6) Expert knowledge (3)

Acad-NGO (2) 1.5� 0/2 Lack of funding (1) Sturgeon conservation (1) Expert knowledge (2) Environmental data (1) Values between brackets under ‘Category (No. ties)’ represent the number of existing relational ties in Romania within and between stakeholder groups. An � indicates significant difference from random expectation (p < 0.05) according to the null-model test. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0221833.t004 PLOS ONE Social network analysis and the implications for Pontocaspian biodiversity conservation in Romania and Ukraine PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0221833 October 23, 2020 13 / 20