Wild meat consumption in tropical forests spares a significant carbon footprint from the livestock production sector

Whether sustainable or not, wild meat consumption is a reality for millions of tropical forest dwellers. Yet estimates of spared greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from consuming wild meat, rather than protein from the livestock sector, have not been quantified. We show that a mean per capita wild meat consumption of 41.7 kg yr −1 for a population of ~ 150,000 residents at 49 Amazonian and Afrotropical forest sites can spare ~ 71 MtCO 2-eq annually under a bovine beef substitution scenario, but only ~ 3 MtCO 2-eq yr −1 if this demand is replaced by poultry. Wild meat offtake by these communities could generate US$3M or US$185K in carbon credit revenues under an optimistic scenario (full compliance with the Paris Agreement by 2030; based on a carbon price of US$50/tCO 2-eq) and US$1M or US$77K under a conservative scenario (conservative carbon price of US$20.81/tCO 2-eq), representing considerable incentives for forest conservation and potential revenues for local communities. However, the wild animal protein consumption of ~ 43% of all consumers in our sample was below the annual minimum per capita rate required to prevent human malnutrition. We argue that managing wild meat consumption can serve the interests of climate change mitigation efforts in REDD + accords through avoided GHG emissions from the livestock sector, but this requires wildlife management that can be defined as verifiably sustainable

Irreplaceable socioeconomic value of wild meat extraction to local food security in rural Amazonia

Wild vertebrates play a decisive role in the subsistence economy of human populations worldwide. The food security value of wild-meat extracted from natural ecosystems remains poorly quantified. Here, we provide an economic valuation of the nutritional and monetary benefits of year-round wild-meat hunting across a large trinational region of southwestern Amazonia using data from indigenous and non-indigenous settlements from 30 sites. We then build scenarios to explore whether three ubiquitous sources of regional-scale household income (i.e. wage labour, horticultural revenues from manioc flour production and the harvest of Brazil-nuts) could match the purchase costs of alternative meat demand to meet domestic consumption of animal protein should game stocks collapse for any reason. We also considered a fourth valuation scenario in terms of game meat substitution with bovine beef. We conservatively estimate a total annual consumption of ~1431.8 tons of undressed animal carcasses, equivalent to a mean per-capita meat consumption of 54.75 kg person−1 yr−1, or ~10.9 kg of animal protein person−1 yr−1. This overall consumption of terrestrial wildlife meat provides US$7.875 million yr−1 across the study region. However, household income levels were too low to enable transitions into domestic livestock consumption indicating low adaptation capacity to alternative animal protein; replacement purchases of domestic meat would amount to 90$2.658 million yr−1 and the conversion of 4310 ha of Amazonian forests into pasture. Our results emphasize the extraordinarily valuable and irreplaceable role of wild meat in the food security of tropical forest dwellers. Proposing consumption of alternative sources of animal protein for monetarily deprived forest dwellers is clearly an unrealistic, if not environmentally-damaging, strategy. Conservation scientists, wildlife biologists and policy makers should therefore prioritize adding value to standing forests by managing sustainable wild-meat offtake from natural ecosystems

Incorporating biodiversity responses to land use change scenarios for preventing emerging zoonotic diseases in areas of unknown host-pathogen interactions

The need to reconcile food production, the safeguarding of nature, and the protection of public health is imperative in a world of continuing global change, particularly in the context of risks of emerging zoonotic disease (EZD). In this paper, we explored potential land use strategies to reduce EZD risks using a landscape approach. We focused on strategies for cases where the dynamics of pathogen transmission among species were poorly known and the ideas of “land-use induced spillover” and “landscape immunity” could be used very broadly. We first modeled three different land-use change scenarios in a region of transition between the Cerrado and the Atlantic Forest biodiversity hotspots. The land-use strategies used to build our scenarios reflected different proportions of native vegetation cover, as a proxy of habitat availability. We then evaluated the effects of the proportion of native vegetation cover on the occupancy probability of a group of mammal species and analyzed how the different land-use scenarios might affect the distribution of species in the landscape and thus the risk of EZD. We demonstrate that these approaches can help identify potential future EZD risks, and can thus be used as decision-making tools by stakeholders, with direct implications for improving both environmental and socio-economic outcomes

Climate determines transmission hotspots of Polycystic Echinococcosis, a life-threatening zoonotic disease, across Pan-Amazonia

Polycystic Echinococcosis (PE), a neglected life-threatening zoonotic disease caused by the cestode is endemic in the Amazon. Despite being treatable, PE reaches a case fatality rate of around 29% due to late or missed diagnosis. PE is sustained in Pan-Amazonia by a complex sylvatic cycle. The hunting of its infected intermediate hosts (especially the lowland paca ) enables the disease to further transmit to humans, when their viscera are improperly handled. In this study, we compiled a unique dataset of host occurrences (~86000 records) and disease infections (~400 cases) covering the entire Pan-Amazonia and employed different modeling and statistical tools to unveil the spatial distribution of PE's key animal hosts. Subsequently, we derived a set of ecological, environmental, climatic, and hunting covariates that potentially act as transmission risk factors and used them as predictors of two independent Maximum Entropy models, one for animal infections and one for human infections. Our findings indicate that temperature stability promotes the sylvatic circulation of the disease. Additionally, we show how El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) extreme events disrupt hunting patterns throughout Pan-Amazonia, ultimately affecting the probability of spillover. In a scenario where climate extremes are projected to intensify, climate change at regional level appears to be indirectly driving the spillover of . These results hold substantial implications for a wide range of zoonoses acquired at the wildlife-human interface for which transmission is related to the manipulation and consumption of wild meat, underscoring the pressing need for enhanced awareness and intervention strategies

ATLANTIC-CAMTRAPS: a dataset of medium and large terrestrial mammal communities in the Atlantic Forest of South America

Our understanding of mammal ecology has always been hindered by the difficulties of observing species in closed tropical forests. Camera trapping has become a major advance for monitoring terrestrial mammals in biodiversity rich ecosystems. Here we compiled one of the largest datasets of inventories of terrestrial mammal communities for the Neotropical region based on camera trapping studies. The dataset comprises 170 surveys of medium to large terrestrial mammals using camera traps conducted in 144 areas by 74 studies, covering six vegetation types of tropical and subtropical Atlantic Forest of South America (Brazil and Argentina), and present data on species composition and richness. The complete dataset comprises 53,438 independent records of 83 species of mammals, includes 10 species of marsupials, 15 rodents, 20 carnivores, eight ungulates and six armadillos. Species richness averaged 13 species (±6.07 SD) per site. Only six species occurred in more than 50% of the sites: the domestic dog Canis familiaris, crab-eating fox Cerdocyon thous, tayra Eira barbara, south American coati Nasua nasua, crab-eating raccoon Procyon cancrivorus and the nine-banded armadillo Dasypus novemcinctus. The information contained in this dataset can be used to understand macroecological patterns of biodiversity, community, and population structure, but also to evaluate the ecological consequences of fragmentation, defaunation, and trophic interactions. © 2017 by the Ecological Society of Americ

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

Composition and conservation of the communities of medium and large sized terrestrial mammals in Parque Estadual da Serra do Brigadeiro

A composição, estrutura e dinâmica das comunidades de mamíferos terrestres de médio e grande porte foram estudadas no Parque Estadual da Serra do Brigadeiro (PESB), um fragmento de Mata Atlântica da região sudeste de Minas Gerais. Neste estudo foram selecionados três blocos de amostragem no norte do PESB para a coleta de dados durante o período de julho de 2007 a agosto de 2008. Foi utilizada a metodologia de armadilhamento fotográfico para os registros das espécies. Para avaliar a estrutura dendrométrica da vegetação utilizaram-se pontos quadrantes. Foram registradas 11 espécies, sendo uma doméstica e quatro presentes em alguma categoria de ameaça. Todos os pontos de amostragem do Vale Perdido registraram pelo menos uma espécie de mamífero terrestre em quatro campanhas de campo. Já para o bloco Matipó, o mesmo esforço de coleta resultou no registro de pelo menos uma espécie em 62,50% dos pontos de amostragem. No bloco Ararica, apenas 25% dos pontos (N=2) foram responsáveis pelo registro das espécies. A estrutura da comunidade foi baseada na série geométrica com dominância de poucas espécies. Em contraposição, houve uma proporção relativamente alta de espécies que seriam "raras" para a estrutura observada, com dominância da onça-parda (Puma concolor) sobre as demais espécies da comunidade. Os dados sobre estrutura dendrométrica de cada bloco apresentaram pequenas diferenças, indicando que a estrutura observada entre os blocos é similar, como exceção da distância média entre as árvores e a altura das mesmas (Matipó vs. Ararica). Os resultados demonstram que o bloco denominado Vale Perdido é o mais importante para conservação da mastofauna do PESB, pois pode apresentar em sua conformação características estruturais e espaciais que favorecem o uso das áreas pelas espécies. A estrutura da comunidade de mamíferos terrestres de médio e grande porte do PESB encontra-se desestruturada ou em fase de estruturação. Possivelmente, esse modelo foi ocasionado por efeitos históricos negativos da região onde se encontra o PESB. As características dendrométricas não foram suficientes para explicar as possíveis diferenças encontradas entre riqueza de espécies na área norte do parque, visto que o Matipó aparenta estar em uma sere sucessional secundária mais avançada. Porém não foi o bloco com maior número de registros.The composition, structure and dynamics of the community of medium and large-sized terrestrial mammals of Parque Estadual da Serra do Brigadeiro (PESB), an Atlantic Forest fragment in southeastern Minas Gerais. In this study, three samplo blocks were selected for data collection from July 2007 to Agust 2008. The camera trap methodology was used for registering species. To evaluate vegetational dendrometric structure, the quadrant point methodology was used. Eleven species were registered, being one domestic and four in some threat category. All sample points in Vale Perdido registered at least one species of terrestrial mammal in four field trips. In Matipó block, the same collection effort resulted in at least one species registered in 62.50% of the sample points. In Ararica block, only 25% of sample points (N=2) were responsible for species registers. Community structure was based in geometric series with dominance of few species. In contraposition there was a relatively high proportion of species that would be expected to be rare for the observed structure, with prevalence of the puma (Puma concolor) over the others species of the community. Dendrometric structure data from each sample block presented little differences, indicating that blocks structure is similar, with exception for the median distance between trees and their highness (Matipó vs. Ararica). Our results show that the sample block named Vale Perdido is the most important for mammalian conservation in PESB, because it can presents in its conformation, structural and spatial characteristics that favour area usage by species. The structure of PESB medium and large-sized terrestrial mammals community is found destructurate or in structuration. Possibly, this model was occasionated by negative historical effects in the regional where PESB is located. Dendrometric characteristics were not sufficient to explain possible differences found among species richness in the north area of the park, since Matipó seems to be in a more advanced secondary successional sere. However, it was not the sample block with more species registers

Composição e abundância relativa dos mamíferos terrestres de médio e grande porte do Parque Estadual da Serra do Brigadeiro, Minas Gerais, Brasil

Três áreas no norte do Parque Estadual da Serra do Brigadeiro (PESB) foram amostradas em relação à fauna de mamíferos terrestres de médio e grande porte, através de armadilhas fotográficas, ao longo de 12 meses. Foram registradas nove espécies silvestres e uma doméstica, a partir de 46 registros. A composição da comunidade foi baseada numa série exponencial com dominância de poucas espécies. Em contraposição, houve uma proporção relativamente alta de espécies que seriam “raras” para a comunidade observada, com dominância da onça-parda (Puma concolor) sobre as demais espécies. Os resultados demonstram que a área denominada Vale Perdido é a mais importante para a conservação da mastofauna, pois nessa área a estimativa de riqueza de espécies é maior (13,99 ± 2,23) se comparada com a das outras duas áreas, que tiveram uma riqueza de 6,00 ± 1,41 e 6,00 ± 1,00, respectivamente. É possível que características estruturais e espaciais do Vale Perdido favoreçam o uso dessa área pelas espécies. A estrutura da comunidade de mamíferos terrestres de médio e grande porte do PESB encontra-se desestruturada ou em fase de estruturação. Possivelmente, esse modelo foi ocasionado por efeitos históricos negativos da ocupação e do extrativismo que a região sofreu na década 1960.Three northern areas of Parque Estadual da Serra do Brigadeiro (PESB) were sampled for terrestrial medium- and large-sized mammals, using camera traps, for twelve months. Nine wild species and one domestic species were registered, through 49 records. The community’s composition was based on an exponential series with dominance of few species. In contrast, there was a relatively high proportion of species that might be “rare” in the community observed, with dominance of puma (Puma concolor) over the other ones. The results show that the area named Vale Perdido is the most important one for the conservation of mammals, because the estimated species richness is higher there (13.99 ± 2.23) when compared to that of the other two areas, which had a richness of 6.00 ± 1.41 and 6.00 ± 1.00, respectively. It’s possible that the structural and spatial characteristics of Vale Perdido favored the use of this area by the species. The structure of the community of medium-and large-sized terrestrial mammals of PESB is unstructured or in a structuring phase. Possibly, this model was caused by negative historical effects of the occupation and extraction that the region underwent in the 1960s