Francisco Zorondo-Rodríguez

University of Santiago, Chile | USACH · Departamento de Gestión Agraria

Background: The prevalence of obesity has increased dramatically in children worldwide. Obesity has been recognized as a risk factor for more serious viral respiratory infections, mainly in adults. Objective: To study the relationship between overnutrition (obesity and overweight) and clinical severity in children hospitalized with acute respira...

Background: The respiratory microbiome is dynamic, varying between anatomical niches, and it is affected by various host and environmental factors, one of which is lifestyle. Few studies have characterized the upper respiratory tract microbiome profile according to lifestyle. We explored the association between lifestyles and microbiota profiles i...

Native and introduced species can coexist in rich ecosystems where competition for resources is less intense; however, native species can be excluded from suitable habitats hosting a high abundance of introduced species. To test these hypotheses, we estimated the probability of introduced bees (buff-tailed bumblebees and honey-bees) to co-occur and...

Biodiversity conservation contributes to satisfy the human well-being. Particularly, protected areas reshape the ways in which people interact with ecosystems and each other, producing changes in the opportunities they have to satisfy the different dimensions of their well-being. The pathways linking human well-being and protected areas could be un...

Background: Little is known about the interaction between the nasopharyngeal bacterial profile and the nutritional status in children. In this study, our main goal was to evaluate the associations between overnutrition and the presence of four potentially pathogenic bacteria in the nasopharynx of infants with viral lower respiratory tract infectio...

While the scientific community documents environmental degradation and develops scenarios to identify the operational margins of system Earth, less attention is given to how decisions are made that steer the system in one direction or the other. We propose to use strategy games for this purpose, increasing the representation of human agency in scen...

Control of the COVID-19 pandemic largely depends on the effectiveness of the vaccination process. An understanding of the factors that underlie the willingness to accept vaccination contributes pivotal information to controlling the pandemic. We analyzed the association between the willingness to accept the available COVID-19 vaccines and vaccine d...

Preserving landscape heritage elements and indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) is an increasingly popular approach in conservation. We focus on a globally very contentious practice, silvopastoral livestock raising, which along with other peasant practices, is slated for elimination according to projected Chilean conservation policy. We used ecolog...

Control of the COVID-19 pandemic largely depends on the effectiveness of the vaccination process. Understanding the factors that underlie the willingness to accept vaccination contributes pivotal information to control the pandemic. We analyzed the association between the willingness to accept the COVID-19 vaccines available and vaccine determinant...

Control of the COVID-19 pandemic largely depends on the effectiveness of the vaccination. Several factors including vaccine hesitancy can affect the vaccination process. Understanding the factors that underlie the willingness to accept vaccination brings pivotal information to control the pandemic. We analyzed the association between the willingnes...

While the scientific community has focused on documenting environmental degradation and developing scenarios that help identify the operational margins for system Earth, less attention has been given to the mental models of decision-makers that underpin environmental policies. We suggest that global efforts to stop deforestation and biodiversity lo...

The Convention on Biological Diversity is defining the goals that will frame future global biodiversity policy in a context of rapid biodiversity decline and under pressure to make transformative change. Drawing on the work of Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars, we argue that transformative change requires the foregrounding of Indigenous people...

Preserving landscape heritage elements and indigenous and local knowledge is an increasingly popular approach in conservation. We focus on a globally very contentious practice, silvopastoral livestock raising, which along with other peasant practices, is slated for elimination according to projected Chilean conservation policy. We used ecological s...

Objective: To investigate the relationship of overnutrition (obese and overweight) with severity of illness in children hospitalized with acute lower respiratory infections (ALRIs), frequency of viral coinfections and leptin levels. Methods: We studied 124 children <2 years old that were hospitalized for ALRI. Nutritional status was calculated by z...

Community involvement may be essential for conservation programme success. We focus on farmers, asking how and why they believe conservation interventions will work, or not. Here we test models of folk theories of the human motivational factors required for behaviour change, in 3 rural central Chilean communities. We hypothesize that different mode...

Conflicts between humans and wildlife could generate problems for biodiversity, and conflict management is important for avoiding biodiversity loss. Social acceptability of management actions for mitigating these conflicts can influence the success of wild carnivore management. Our study was carried out in southern Chile where we evaluated levels o...

Social support is one of the key factors that determines the success of protected areas. An ex-ante evaluation of the social support regarding the establishment process of protected areas could facilitate a more effective formation and hence improved management of such areas. Public backing for new parks could depend on several factors, including r...

Human well-being is a socio-cultural construct, originated within human experiences, that changes through time. The current literature shows a renewed interest to develop new measures and approaches to relate it to the progress of nations. One of the challenges is whether inequality is a key component and how to measure it. Furthermore, are indicat...

At present, there is no unified theoretical framework to deal with environmental governance issues. Consequently, there is a diversity of interpretations of the concept at the public-political arena both nationally and internationally. Recent Latin American efforts have given a step forward conceptualizing environmental governance from the South an...

Predation on domestic animals by carnivores is a persistent problem wherever carnivores and livestock co-occur. A wide range of management tools to reduce predation has been invoked. However, the evidence of their effectiveness is still limited for a broader range of species and conditions. Using a global analysis of domestic animal predation by na...

Rural communities worldwide face a decrease of critical ecosystem services caused by replacement of native forests by commercial plantations. Replacement of native forest by commercial plantations decreases water provisioning, with possible negative impacts over well-being. We tested this hypothesis in Central Chile. We assessed subjective well-bei...

For indigenous populations, schooling and local knowledge systems may be at odds. Understanding indigenous learning systems can help mitigate conflicts between acquisition of local ecological knowledge and academic knowledge. Among boys and men of the Jenu Kuruba of South India, we compare levels of schooling and local knowledge related to wild hon...

Subjective well-being is determined by several types of sources of satisfaction, defined as forms of capitals. Most of research has been focused on the links between economic capital and well-being, neglecting the contribution of other forms of capital as source of satisfaction. Here, we bring natural capital into the equation and explore the relat...

A commonality in the economics of happiness literature is that absolute income matters more for the subjective wellbeing of people at low income levels. In this article, we use a large sample of people in rural areas of developing countries with relatively low income levels to test whether subjective wellbeing an increasing function of absolute inc...

Background The biological conservation in private lands largely depends upon landowners’ willingness to keep populations of wild species on them, an issue highlighted by the Convention on Biological Diversity. In this study, we aim (i) to understand small landowners’ behavioural intentions, or relative intensity to adopt a given behaviour, towards...

Background The biological conservation in private lands largely depends upon landowners’ willingness to keep populations of wild species on them, an issue highlighted by the Convention on Biological Diversity. In this study, we aim (i) to understand small landowners’ behavioural intentions, or relative intensity to adopt a given behaviour, towards...

Accounting for age-dependent patterns of knowledge transmission is critical for understanding cultural evolution in age-structured populations. Cultural evolution theory predicts which social learning biases we expect people to use, but much less often when during a person's life cycle different social learning biases will be used. By measuring kno...

A substantial body of research explores local residents' perceptions and attitudes toward protected areas. However, less research focuses explicitly on different aspects of local residents' knowledge about protected areas. To examine the local residents' knowledge regarding the existence and regulations of a nearby protected area and some of the so...

Improving quality of life (QoL) is one of the main goals of many public policies. A useful tool to measure QoL needs to get a good balance between indicators guided by theories (top-down approach) and indicators defined by local people (bottom-up approach). However, QoL measurement tools often neglect to include elements that define the standard of...

The success of long-term sustainable management of natural resources depends on local people’s support. Assessing local people’s attitudes, taking into account their needs, and respecting their opinions should become a management priority. In India, in the last 20 years, community needs and aspirations in forest management were handled through Join...

This study explores the association between individual beliefs in local Islamic Saints in the High Atlas of Morocco and the use of the environment. This exploration is done within the framework of a traditional institution of natural resource management, based on the regulations (called Agdal) of access to common pastoral resources. Research method...

Los atributos socioeconómicos influencian la colección de productos forestales no maderables (PFNMs). Ellos indican diferentes sectores sociales involucrados en la colección y, además, sugieren factores que regulan la extracción de PFNMs. Las asociaciones entre atributos socioeconómicos y colección de PFNMs cambiarían entre venta y consumo de PFNMs...

Researchers, governments and conservation organizations recognize that the long-term integrity of protected areas (PAs) in low-income nations depends upon the support of indigenous and rural communities that live within or around them. Thus, understanding the determinants of residents attitudes towards PAs might provide guidance in the design, impl...