FSD 2010 - Fragoso

5th International Symposium-Workshop on Frugivores and Seed Dispersal (1985-2010)

José Manuel V. Fragoso

Stanford University Biology
Gilbert Hall Stanford, CA 94305, United States

fragoso@stanford.edu

Activities

Despite important advances in international commitments to biodiversity conservation and protected area creation, economic, social and policy drivers continue to rapidly convert tropical ecosystems in an unplanned, unregulated manner. I am interested in identifying natural- and social science-based approaches to the maintenance of ecosystem function in landscapes inhabited and utilized by humans as a means of altering policies that drive biodiversity loss. Since I first began research and conservation efforts in the tropics, my research trajectory has moved from a focus on the ecology of tropical ungulates to increasingly broader research projects incorporating seed dispersal dynamics, indirect interactions between ungulates and insects, plant community ecology, direct and indirect impacts of humans on food webs and ecological communities and the sociology and economics of human societies in the tropics.

I now use a complex systems approach to understand interactions, feedbacks and uncertainty in coupled systems, and maintain two core research programs: 1. Scale-dependent interactions and feedbacks in food webs involving large ungulates (including consequences of defaunation and other system impacts by humans); and 2. Significance of human cultural practices and policy contexts for biodiversity dynamics in coupled natural-human systems. My interest in integrating ecological, cultural, political and economic perspectives in conservation efforts in Brazil led to the development of a large-scale interdisciplinary research initiative funded by the US National Science Foundation. This project uses hunting and vertebrate population dynamics as a model system through which to understand the feedbacks between indigenous cultures undergoing socio-economic transitions and their natural environment. Relying on the tools of ecological, social, geographic and mathematical sciences, this research explicitly seeks to both describe ecological dynamics and inform conservation, development and human rights policy at local, national and international levels. The project has recently expanded through a collaboration with the Guyanese NGO Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development, and the securing of funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation focused on capacity building and research initiatives with indigenous peoples and the Guyanese government in preparation for REDD and the management of ecosystem services.

Abstract

The abundance and diversity of vertebrate frugivores at lanscape levels in Amazonia

by José Manuel V. Fragoso¹, L. Flamarion Oliviera², Kirsten Silvius³, Jane Read4

¹Biology, Stanford University, ² National Museum of Brazil, ³ Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, ⁴ Syracuse University

Frugivorous animal distribution should be patchy in response to the aggregated distribution of fruiting trees. We test this hypothesis with data collected from a little disturbed 30,000 km square region of Amazonia, and control for the effects of hunting. We selected natural vegetated areas around 13 villages and 3 unhunted areas for study. At each site, transect arrays (for counting animals) were divided into two concentric zones, heavily hunted (0 – 6 km) and moderately hunted (6 – 12 km), with 4, 4-km transects within each zone. This sampling protocol was also applied at the 3 unhunted areas. We recorded all observations of the 21 animal species most frequently killed by humans. A total of 6,608 km were walked on all transects over 2 years. Animal abundances varied within unhunted areas, within human hunted areas, and between hunted and unhunted areas. Surprisingly the abundance of some of the most hunted species, occurred around villages rather than in unhunted regions. We conclude that contiguous areas in undisturbed regions can support very different diversities and levels of frugivorous vertebrate species, and that human occupied areas, even when they experience hunting may support vertebrate abundance and diversity levels greater than what occurs in areas undisturbed by humans. We discuss the implications of these patterns for understanding animal influence on tree distribution patterns.

Some key references

Fragoso, JMV, Bodmer, RE and Silvius, KM. 2004. Wildlife conservation and management in South and Central America: multiple pressures and innovative solutions. In People in Nature: wildlife conservation in South and Central America, Ed by KM Silvius, RE Bodmer and JMV Fragoso, pp. 1-8. New York: Columbia University Press.