Julia E. Fa

Manchester Metropolitan University | MMU · Department of Natural Sciences

ABSTRACT 1. Ebola virus is responsible for the fatal Ebola virus disease (EVD). 2. Identifying the distribution area of the Ebola virus is crucial for understand- ing the risk factors conditioning the emergence of new EVD cases. Existing distribution models have underrepresented the potential contribution that res- ervoir species and vulnerable spe...

Understanding the scale, location and nature conservation values of the lands over which Indigenous Peoples exercise traditional rights is central to implementation of several global conservation and climate agreements. However, spatial information on Indigenous lands has never been aggregated globally. Here, using publicly available geospatial res...

The resilience of a given species to hunting is conditioned by the effect of potential threats upon the more sensitive periods in its life history, such as when animals are breeding. We investigated the environmental drivers of breeding seasonality in the lowland paca (Cuniculus paca), and the potential impact of hunting on the species. As part of...

1. A significant link between forest loss and fragmentation and outbreaks of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in humans has been documented. Deforestation may alter the natural circulation of viruses and change the composition, abundance, behaviour and possibly viral exposure of reservoir species. This in turn might increase contact between infected anima...

As a result of sedentarisation many Baka Pygmies have changed their mobility patterns away from nomadic lifestyles to living in roadside villages. These settled groups are increasingly dependent on cultivated foods but still rely on forest resources. The level of dependence on hunting of wild animals for food and cash, as well as the hunting profil...

Working paper analysing the economic implications of the proposed 30% target for areal protection in the draft post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework

Goliath beetles (genus Goliathus) are among the largest and most charismatic insects in the world. In West African forests, two species (G. cacicus and G. regius) and natural hybrids are found. These beetles are widely collected for the entomological trade. We carried out standardized interview campaigns in Liberia and Ivory Coast to explore local...

The Dahomey Gap” is a human-derived mostly savannah region that separates the Guinea-Congolian rainforest block into two major units: the Upper Guinean and the Lower Guinean Forest blocks. In this savannah dominated habitat, several forest patches are distributed throughout. The mammal communities in the Dahomey gap region have been poorly studied....

Protected areas are crucial to safeguard Sub-Saharan Africa’s extraordinary and abundant megafauna. In many of these areas, instability has derailed conservation efforts and impeded adequate wildlife monitoring. Discovered in 2004, Eastern chimpanzees are found in the Central Uele Basin in northern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) within the Bili...

Real R, Báez JC, Fa JE, Olivero J and Acevedo P (2022) Making the competitive exclusion principle operational at the biogeographical scale using fuzzy logic. In biogeography the competitive exclusion principle (CEP) has been confirmed in some cases but not in others. This has fueled an unresolved debate between those advocating niche theory or the...

We analysed entry frequencies (raids) of wild boar in three different golf courses in the Costa del Sol (Málaga, Spain) during the 2020-2022 period. We compared raid frequencies during periods with COVID restrictions to the frequencies during times of normal access to the facilities. We used camera-trapping to monitor wild boar movement onto the go...

Although hunters often blame predators for the decline of the red-legged partridge, predation is just one of a number of possible causal factors. The main mammalian predators of partridges are those associated with humanized environments (feral dogs and cats). Other partridge predators include raptors, carnivores, rodents, insectivores and wild boa...

The hunting of wild animals for their meat has been a crucial activity in the evolution of humans. It continues to be an essential source of food and a generator of income for millions of Indigenous and rural communities worldwide. Conservationists rightly fear that excessive hunting of many animal species will cause their demise, as has already ha...

Primates, represented by 521 species, are distributed across 91 countries primarily in the Neotropic, Afrotropic, and Indo-Malayan realms. Primates inhabit a wide range of habitats and play critical roles in sustaining healthy ecosystems that benefit human and nonhuman communities. Approximately 68% of primate species are threatened with extinction...

Sustainability is widely used in science and politics and has myriad definitions. Some explanations emphasize the ecological, socio-political or economic aspects of sustainability. In this chapter we introduce the different approaches and metrics that have been used or proposed to assess wild meat sustainability. We first describe the concept of ma...

Ensuring the sustainable management of wild meat use is challenging and complex, requiring a balance between sustainable development, food security and conservation. Available information and examples from more than four decades of research suggests that with the right enabling environment, political will and suitable legislation and governance, we...

We start the chapter by describing the different modes of hunting and clarify that in this book we primarily focus on subsistence hunting and commercial hunting; the latter provides wild meat for local rural and urban markets. The main objective of subsistence hunting is to provide food for the hunters and their families. This activity plays a vita...

The hunting of wild animals for their meat has been a crucial activity in the evolution of humans. It continues to be an essential source of food and a generator of income for millions of Indigenous and rural communities worldwide. Conservationists rightly fear that excessive hunting of many animal species will cause their demise, as has already ha...

In this chapter we first define the tropics and subtropics, the environmental backdrop of our book. We then highlight the main biomes found in these areas and present an overview of the availability of huntable animals found in these habitats. Because mammals are the most important hunted group, most of our analyses refer to them. We focus our desc...

The exploitation of wild animals for their meat not only continues throughout the tropics and subtropics but is in most areas increasing. This is an activity of crucial importance that continues to buttress the food security and livelihoods of many millions of people. In this chapter we give an overview of the impact of hunting on prey populations....

The hunting of wild animals for their meat has been a crucial activity in the evolution of humans. It continues to be an essential source of food and a generator of income for millions of Indigenous and rural communities worldwide. Conservationists rightly fear that excessive hunting of many animal species will cause their demise, as has already ha...

Many diseases that affect humans are directly or indirectly connected to wild and domestic meat and to wildlife in general. All have different impacts ranging from mild to lethal. In this chapter we concentrate on those emerging zoonotic diseases which are directly linked to wild meat and which have the most serious impact on humans (mainly viral d...

The hunting of wild animals for their meat has been a crucial activity in the evolution of humans. It continues to be an essential source of food and a generator of income for millions of Indigenous and rural communities worldwide. Conservationists rightly fear that excessive hunting of many animal species will cause their demise, as has already ha...

In this first chapter we describe the importance of hunting and meat eating to humans and how this has influenced the evolution of the species. This is followed by a brief review of how prevailing ecological conditions influence human’s dependence on plants or animals to survive at different latitudes. We then document which animal species and grou...

Humans and other animals face decisions on which food items to harvest, when to quit searching and when to move on to the next patch. This chapter starts by describing optimal foraging theory (OFT), which has been used to understand and to predict foraging behaviour in animals as well as humans. We follow this by describing how cultural issues, suc...

The Sudd in South Sudan, formed by the White Nile's Baḥr al-Jabal section, is one of the largest and most important wetlands in the world. Communities in the region almost exclusively depend on fisheries for food and livelihoods. Although threatened by over-exploitation and habitat changes, fish populations are also affected by climate change. Usin...

We assessed numbers and biomass of species hunted and sold for wild meat in 12 park-adjacent settlements in the Fazao Malfakassa National Park (FMNP), Togo. From hunter interviews and market carcass counts 33 species, 28 from hunter interviews and 26 from market surveys were taken, respectively. A total of 2605 animals were recorded in the study, 1...

Central African cities are major centres of demand for wild meat, even when affordable alternative proteins are widely available. Many people eat wild meat in restaurants; therefore, restaurateurs are well placed to provide insights into the wild meat trade and consumer preferences. We surveyed 326 restaurants in Brazzaville and Kinshasa, the adjoi...

The sexually dimorphic dynastine centaurus beetle, genus Augosoma (Coleoptera: Scarabeidae), is endemic to tropical Africa where two species are found (A. centaurus and A. hippocrates). These beetles are consumed by rural populations, cause damage in plantations and are targets of insect collectors and traders. We present information on size differ...

Wild meat markets play a crucial role for food security and cash income for subsistence hunters in the tropics and subtropics. In Nigeria, the amount of meat sold from most species crashed dramatically after the Ebola virus outbreak in 2014. Sales further diminished after arrival of COVID-19, likely because of restrictions to commerce and of change...

Indigenous Peoples’ (IP) stewardship has helped conserve biodiversity and maintain healthy ecosystems worldwide. Among many challenges to this role are mounting pressures from industrial development. By assessing the current ecological condition of Indigenous lands with their potential for future industrial development, we show that the ecological...

The snake communities in Asian tropical forests are relatively unknown, with most studies focusing on species lists. We investigated species composition, relative abundance, and community ecology of snakes in a mature secondary hilly forest area in the Quan Son District, northern Vietnam. To our knowledge, it is one of the few field investigations...

Durante el periodo 2018-2021 muestreamos la presencia y uso por parte de la nutria de 20 puertos en el litoral entre Cádiz y Granada. El 55% resultó positivo, con un uso frecuente de algo más de la mitad, mientras que en el resto el uso es más esporádico. Las nutrias usan los embarcaderos y docks de motos de agua como lugares de alimentación y marc...

Este guia é destinado a profissionais da conservação e do desenvolvimento sustentável no mundo todo, que elaboram e implementam projetos para o manejo da carne de caça em comunidades rurais. Esses projetos são motivados pela preocupação com a sustentabilidade do consumo da carne de caça e a proteção de espécies silvestres ameaçadas ou afetadas pela...

A body plan (= bauplan) is a suite of morphological characters shared by phylogenetically related animals at some point during their development. Despite its value, the bauplan concept is still rarely employed to characterize functional groups in community ecology. Here, we examine habitat use and spatio-temporal activity correlates of an entire se...

Suitable habitats for anurans can be found in the ever-growing tropical urban environments but anurans’ adaptations to urban conditions, including their trophic ecology remain largely unknown. We studied the food habits of two generalist, widespread West African Sclerophrys adult toads: African common (S. regularis) and Hallowell's toad (S. maculat...

The Iberian hare (Lepus granatensis) is an important small game species endemic to the Iberian Peninsula for which the incidence of roadkill is unknown. We surveyed Iberian hare–vehicle accidents on road networks in southern Spain, focusing on roads that mainly run through favorable habitats for this species: Mediterranean landscapes with plots of...

This study looks for the first time at the extent to which terrestrial animals protected by the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) are being impacted by wild meat taking, trade and consumption. It contributes to the implementation of a decision adopted by the CMS Conference of the Parties in 2020 (CMS Decision...

en In Togo, the illegal trade of African elephant (Loxodonta africana ) ivory is widespread despite efforts made by the government to curtail these activities. By using data gathered from CITES institutions and natural resource management authorities in the country, we investigated the extent of ivory trafficking in Togo. We also conducted surveys...

Several hundred species are hunted for wild meat in the tropics, supporting the diets, customs, and livelihoods of millions of people. However, unsustainable hunting is one of the most urgent threats to wildlife and ecosystems worldwide and has serious ramifications for people whose subsistence and income are tied to wild meat. Over the past 18 yea...

Despite increasing pressures on freshwater resources worldwide, and the threatened status of most freshwater turtles, there is still limited knowledge of habitat use and niche partitioning in Afrotropical freshwater turtle communities. In this study, we describe habitat associations, community diversity, and temporal patterns of occurrence of fresh...

The composition and structure of antelope assemblages were analyzed by using data from wild meat markets in three distinct study stations in the southern Niger Delta, Nigeria. The relative abundance of the different species coming into the markets was analyzed, and various diversity metrics were used to describe the different antelope communities....

Dataset with the occurrences of dengue cases from 2013 to 2017. The following information is provided: year, continent, country, admi 1 (largest subnational administrative unit in the country), admi 2 (second largest subnational administrative unit in the country: province, district, municipality or canton), latitude, longitude, and location. The l...

Dengue is a viral disease transmitted by mosquitoes. The rapid spread of dengue could lead to a global pandemic, and so the geographical extent of this spread needs to be assessed and predicted. There are also reasons to suggest that transmission of dengue from non-human primates in tropical forest cycles is being underestimated. We investigate the...

In 2018, the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted a decision on protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs). It contains the definition of an OECM and related scientific and technical advice that has broadened the scope of governance authorities and areas that can be engaged and recognised...

Pangolins are considered among the most threatened mammal species, both globally and also in Africa. However, almost nothing is known on their status and distribution across wide areas of their range, particularly in West African countries. Here we assess the status and distribution of pangolin species in Togo. Fieldwork was carried out in five loc...

Globally, community-based initiatives are effective in protecting ecosystems and the species within them. In this paper, we analyze the emergence and large-scale expansion of a community-based environmental protection system (the Voluntary Environmental Agents Program-VEA Program) in the Brazilian Amazon and identify factors that have determined it...

Traditionally, humans have consumed nonhuman primates in many places, including throughout the Amazon region. However, primate consumption rates are changing with rising urbanization and market access. We characterize primate consumption in central Amazonia using 192 qualitative interviews with inhabitants in three rural villages and in the city of...

Lepus granatensis is an Iberian Peninsula endemic species and one of the most important small game species. We surveyed Iberian hare-vehicle accidents in roads network in southern Spain, analysing the Mediterranean landscape, the main habitats of this species. We recorded roadkill of roads during 6-month, compared hare roadkill densities to hare hu...

We monitored the incidence of predation behavior in Eurasian otters ( Lutra lutra ) from urban ponds in southern Spain, following reports of the mustelids’ presence in various urban locations. In one of the case studies, 30 small common carp and 35 Koi fish were released in May 2017 and April 2018, respectively, into two different ponds. Otters ext...

Indigenous Peoples’ lands cover over one‐quarter of Earth's surface, a significant proportion of which is still free from industrial‐level human impacts. As a result, Indigenous Peoples and their lands are crucial for the long‐term persistence of Earth's biodiversity and ecosystem services. Yet, information on species composition on these lands glo...

en The waterbuck (Kobus ellipsiprymnus), though widespread throughout Africa, is suspected to be declining overall. Data on population numbers and structure are lacking for many parts of its range, especially in West Africa, where the subspecies defassa is found. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the abundance, distribution and attribute...

Ebola virus disease, EVD, which has severely affected Western African countries has been linked with wild meat. In Nigeria, strict restrictions on the sale of wild meat were applied after the first case in the country, July 2014. We quantified wild meat trade in nine markets in southern Nigeria, during Oct. 2010 – Dec. 2019. We also undertook inter...

People hunt wild animals in a wide range of settings all over the world. Zooarcheological evidence shows that hunting goes back at least two million years and even contributed to the extinction of megafauna in the Pleistocene period. Yet today, there is mounting evidence that apes are becoming a more desired product, and thus trafficking is increas...

Despite increasing pressures on freshwater resources worldwide, and the threatened status of most freshwater turtles, there is still limited knowledge of habitat use and niche partitioning in Afrotropical freshwater turtle communities. In this study, we describe habitat associations, community diversity, and temporal patterns of occurrence of fresh...

Resource partitioning, the division of limited resources by species to help avoid competition , has been observed in freshwater turtle assemblages in several natural systems but has rarely been studied in tropical African ecosystems. Here, we investigate habitat preferences of two conge-neric species in the family Pelomedusidae, Pelusios castaneus...

A significant number of Baka Pygmies in Cameroon have been sedentarised in roadside villages, in contrast to their nomadic hunter-gatherer existence of the past. Although this change in lifestyle has had important consequences on health, most Baka villages still supplement their diets from forest products, especially wild meat. We used a combinatio...

Involving communities in sustainable wildlife management in tropical forests can ensure food security and livelihoods of millions of forest dwellers that depend on wild meat, and also safeguard hunted species. Mathematical models have been developed to assess hunting sustainability; but these require empirical information on reproductive parameters...

Face-to-face interviews with local populations are often used to determine the distribution and population trends of elusive threatened species. Although interviewee responses may suffer from some bias, historical trends in the status of a species can be investigated from age-structured questionnaires. In this paper, we tested this idea by analysin...

Tortoise ecology is poorly studied in East Africa. Here, using two terrestrial Testudinidae (Stigmochelys pardalis and Kinixys belliana) as study models, we (i) present basic demographic characteristics (sex-ratio, and density), (ii) describe correlates of their presence at two spatial scales (micro-habitat and macro-habitat), (iii) evaluate the ef...

Hunting for wild meat in the tropics provides subsistence and income for millions of people. Methods have remained relatively unchanged since the introduction of shotguns and battery‐powered incandescent flashlights, but the short battery life of such flashlights has limited nocturnal hunting. However, hunters in many countries throughout the tropi...

en Pangolins are considered among the most threatened mammal species, both globally and also in Africa. However, almost nothing is known on their status and distribution across wide areas of their range, particularly in West African countries. Here, we assess the status and distribution of pangolin species in Togo. Fieldwork was carried out in five...

Background Forest inhabitants worldwide, and indigenous people especially, have depended for generations on plants and animals harvested in these ecosystems. A number of Baka hunter-gatherer populations in south-eastern Cameroon became sedentarised in the 1950s, but still rely on hunting and gathering to meet their basic needs. The use of wild edib...

Conservationists need detailed information on human population growth and distribution in areas adjacent to protected areas. This information can help determine land use/land cover changes (LULCC), which affect the quality and quantity of elephant habitat and, thus, elephant populations. We assessed the influence of human population trends on demog...