Participatory monitoring reveals village-centered gradients of mammalian defaunation in central Africa

Beirne, Christopher; Meier, Amelia; Mbélé, Alex Ebang; Menie, Guillaume Menie; Froese, Graden; Okouyi, Joseph; Poulsen, John R.

doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2019.02.035

Cited by 36 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…Informed management decisions rely on understanding how biological communities respond to putative covariates of interest (such as hunting pressure or anthropogenic disturbance). Here, we compared the effect of village distance, a covariate known to markedly affect the observation of mammals in this study area (Beirne et al 2019). Reassuringly, for six of nine species assessed, the directional effect of the covariate was consistent across all survey methodologies, suggesting that the same conclusions would be reached regardless of survey method.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

“…Here, we compared the effect of village distance, a covariate known to markedly affect the observation of mammals in this study area (Beirne et al. ). Reassuringly, for six of nine species assessed, the directional effect of the covariate was consistent across all survey methodologies, suggesting that the same conclusions would be reached regardless of survey method.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We also conducted a refresher training after six months of data collection and the expert ecologist walked roughly 10% of the transects with the paraecologists (Beirne et al. ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Each paraecologist participated in a mandatory three-day training program and practiced each of the methods under supervision of an expert ecologist in the field before beginning the study to ensure that methods were applied consistently across villages. We also conducted a refresher training after six months of data collection and the expert ecologist walked roughly 10% of the transects with the paraecologists (Beirne et al 2019).…”

Section: Transect Creationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The fourth model incorporated data from all three survey methods to predict the same eight most common species. In all models, we included distance to nearest village and distance to nearest road (in kilometers, taken from the midline of the transect) as predictors because they serve as uncorrelated proxies for hunting pressure (r = 0.35), with distance to nearest village known to have a strong effect on animal communities in our study area (Beirne et al 2019, Koerner et al 2017.…”

Section: Ecological Inferencementioning

confidence: 99%

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Stronger together: comparing and integrating camera trap, visual, and dung survey data in tropical forest communities

et al. 2019

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Accurate estimations of animal populations are necessary for management, conservation, and policy decisions. However, methods for surveying animal communities disproportionately represent specific groups or guilds. For example, transect surveys can provide robust data for large arboreal species but underestimate cryptic or small‐bodied terrestrial species, whereas camera traps have the inverse tendency. The integration of information from multiple methodologies would provide the most complete inference on population size or responses to putative covariates, yet a simple, robust framework that allows integration and comparison of multiple data sources has been lacking. We use 27,813 counts of 35 species or species groups derived from concurrent visual transects, dung transects, and camera trap surveys in tropical forests and compare them within a generalized joint attribute modeling framework (GJAM) that both compares and integrates field‐collected dung, visual, and camera trap data to quantify the species‐ and trait‐specific differences in detection for each method. The effectiveness of survey method was strongly dependent on species, as well as animal traits. These differences in effectiveness contributed to meaningful differences in the reported strength of a known important covariate for animal communities (distance to nearest village). Data fusion through GJAM allows clear and unambiguous comparisons of the counts provided from each different methodology, the incorporation of trait information, and fusion of all three data streams to generate a more complete estimate of the effects of an anthropogenic disturbance covariate. Research and conservation resources are extremely limited, which often means that field campaigns attempt to maximize the amount of information gathered especially in remote, hard‐to‐access areas. Advances in these understudied areas will be accelerated by analytical methods that can fully leverage the total body of diverse biodiversity field data, even when they are collected using different methods. We demonstrate that survey methods vary in their effectiveness for counting species based on biological traits, but more importantly that generative models like GJAM can integrate data from multiple sources in one cohesive statistical framework to make improved inference in understudied environments.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We also conducted a refresher training after six months of data collection and the expert ecologist walked roughly 10% of the transects with the paraecologists (Beirne et al. ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Transect Creationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Ecological Inferencementioning

confidence: 99%

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Stronger together: comparing and integrating camera trap, visual, and dung survey data in tropical forest communities

et al. 2019

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Homogenization of terrestrial mammals in fragmented rainforests: the loss of species turnover and its landscape drivers

Arce-Peña

Arroyo‐Rodríguez

Ávila-Cabadilla

et al. 2021

Ecological Applications

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Understanding the factors and mechanisms shaping differences in species composition across space and time (β‐diversity) in human‐modified landscapes has key ecological and applied implications. This topic is, however, challenging because landscape disturbance can promote either decreases (biotic homogenization) or increases (biotic differentiation) in β‐diversity. We assessed temporal differences in intersite β‐diversity of medium‐bodied and large‐bodied mammals in the fragmented Lacandona rainforest, Mexico. We hypothesized that, given the relatively short history of land‐use changes in the region, and the gain and loss of some species caused by landscape spatial changes, β‐diversity would increase through time, especially its nestedness component. We estimated β‐diversity between 24 forest sites (22 forest patches and two continuous forest sites) in 2011 and 2017 to assess whether β‐diversity is decreasing or increasing in the region, and calculated its turnover and nestedness components to understand the mechanisms responsible for changes in β‐diversity, separately assessing mammal groups with different body mass, feeding guild, and habitat specialization. We then related such temporal changes in β‐diversity to temporal changes in five landscape variables (forest cover, matrix openness, number of patches, edge density and interpatch distance) to identify the landscape drivers of β‐diversity. In contrast with our expectations, β‐diversity decreased over time, suggesting an ongoing biotic homogenization process. This pattern was mostly driven by a decrease in species turnover in all mammal groups, especially in landscapes with decreasing forest cover and increasing forested matrices. Although the nestedness component showed a three‐fold increase through time, species turnover was 22 and six times higher than nestedness in 2011 and 2017, respectively. The decreased turnover appears to be driven by an increase in dispersal (i.e., spillover) of native species among patches. The prevalence of species turnover over nestedness indicates that different forest sites have a fairly distinct subset of species (i.e., high complementarity in species composition). Therefore, conserving all remaining forest patches and increasing forest cover is of utmost importance to effectively maintain β‐diversity and conserve the total diversity (γ) of mammal assemblages in this Mesoamerican biodiversity hotspot.

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The distribution of bushmeat mammals in unflooded forests of the Central Amazon is influenced by poaching proxies

de Souza Ferreira Neto,

Baccaro,

Phillips

et al. 2023

Ecology and Evolution

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Medium to large rainforest mammals are key conservation flagship groups that offer non‐redundant ecosystem functions, but anthropic pressures, such as illegal hunting, may strongly affect their occupancy in Amazonia. We combined camera traps and occupancy models to assess the influence of distance from human settlements, the number of families per settlement and the synergetic effect of the average weight of 27 species on the occupancy probability of mammals. Specifically, we classified mammal species according to the game preferences of hunters (i.e. a group of species depleted for bushmeat, a group of species hunted for retaliation and a group of non‐hunted species). We also accounted for the influence on the detection probability of each group of both the number of days each camera operated and the body weight of mammals. The occupancy probability of the bushmeat group (i.e. deer, peccaries, agoutis, pacas and armadillos) was lower at locations closer to human settlements. Still, the number of families correlated positively with occupancy, with the occupancy probability of the group being slightly higher at sites with more families. This difference was probably due to larger and more abundant crops and fruiting trees attracting wildlife at such sites. Conversely, the occupancy probability of the retaliation group (i.e. carnivores) and the non‐hunted group (i.e. opossums, spiny rats, squirrels and anteaters) were indifferent to anthropogenic stressors. The detection probability of the non‐hunted and particularly the most depleted species correlated negatively with body weight. This may suggest that larger species, especially those from the bushmeat group, are rarer or less abundant in the system, possibly because they are the preferable target of hunters. In the long term, locals will likely need to travel long distances to find harvest meat. Poaching also threatens food security since game bushmeat is an essential source of protein for isolated rural Amazonians.

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Participatory monitoring reveals village-centered gradients of mammalian defaunation in central Africa

Cited by 36 publications

References 56 publications

Stronger together: comparing and integrating camera trap, visual, and dung survey data in tropical forest communities

Stronger together: comparing and integrating camera trap, visual, and dung survey data in tropical forest communities

Homogenization of terrestrial mammals in fragmented rainforests: the loss of species turnover and its landscape drivers

The distribution of bushmeat mammals in unflooded forests of the Central Amazon is influenced by poaching proxies

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