Stephan Michael Funk

Lemu & NatureHeritage · Conservation biology

Wild meat hunting and trade across African savannas is widespread. We interviewed 299 people in rural settlements along the Kenya-Tanzania border to examine impacts of COVID-19 on wild meat consumption and perceptions about wild meat activities associated with zoonotic disease risks. Education level played a key part in understanding COVID-19 trans...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Background Forest inhabitants worldwide, and Indigenous Peoples especially, have depended for generations on plants and animals harvested in these ecosystems. A number of Baka Pygmy 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 edible plants...

Background: Forest inhabitants worldwide, and Indigenous Peoples 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 ed...

Background: Forest inhabitants worldwide, and Indigenous Peoples 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 ed...

We determined stunting, wasting, and obesity frequencies in a total 1092 2-to-12 year old Baka Pygmy children from anthropometric and health data gathered in 34 villages in the Djoum-Mintom region in southeastern Cameroon in four health campaigns in 2010 and 2017–9. We compare these to the WHO Child Growth Standards, Amazonian Tsiname growth refere...

STRUCTURE remains the most applied software aimed at recovering the true, but unknown, population structure from microsatellite or other genetic markers. About 30% of STRUCTURE‐based studies could not be reproduced (Molecular Ecology, 21, 2012, 4925). Here we use a large set of data from 2,323 horses from 93 domestic breeds plus the Przewalski hors...

Differences in socioeconomic conditions and health have been reported for African Pygmies and their sympatric populations of other ethnic groups. We collected anthropometric data in southern Cameroon from Baka and their Bantu neighbours, and also extracted from the five available and representative Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) in sub-Sahara...

The trade of bushmeat from rural areas to supply burgeoning cities is a major conservation and livelihood concern. Using a whole-city sampling strategy we mapped the distribution and numbers of meat outlets in the Kinshasa–Brazzaville metropolitan area, two neighboring capital cities in Central Africa. We show that both cities differ in the number...

We found the ear mite parasite (Otodectes cynotis; Acari: Psoroptidae) in two distant insular endangered fox populations in Chile. We identified Otodectes cynotis in both the Darwin's fox (Pseudalopex fulvipes) from Chiloé and the Fuegian culpeo (Pseudalopex culpaeus lycoides) in Tierra del Fuego. These populations are approximately 2,000 km apart....

Background African Pygmies exhibit a unique, genetically determined child growth dynamics and adult stature but the impact on assessing undernutrition remains unknown. Baka Pygmy health is highly compromised compared to sympatric populations. Evaluating child undernutrition is an important step to address this health quandry. We estimate stunting a...

Protected areas (PAs) in Central Africa provide unprecedented opportunities to maintain ecosystem integrity and safeguard the unique wildlife of one of the most biodiverse regions in the world. However, conflicts exist between wildlife protection, and the needs of human populations adjacent to PAs. Although the use of wildlife resources within PAs...

Effective protection of the ~19,000 IUCN-listed threatened species has never been more pressing. Ensuring the survival of the most vulnerable and irreplaceable taxa and places, such as those identified by the Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE) species and their associated sites (AZEs&s), is an excellent opportunity to achieve the Aichi 2020 Targets...

To determine the evolutionary history, relationships and distinctiveness of allopatric populations of Hispaniolan solenodon (Solenodon paradoxus), a highly threatened Caribbean ‘relict’ mammal, to understand spatio-temporal patterns of gene flow and the distribution of diversity across complex large island landscapes and inform spatial conservation...

The island of Mauritius has experienced five reptile extinctions since the 1600s. Approximately half of the remaining herpetofauna has been restricted to offshore islets, resulting in small populations at high risk of extinction. Under the combined pressures of invasive species, habitat loss and fragmentation and climate change, translocations are...

Recent analyses of Internet search behaviour conclude that the public’s interest in environmental issues is falling (McCallum and Bury, Biodiv Conserv 22:1355–1367, 2013). Ficetola (Biodiv Conserv 22:2983–2988, 2013) argued that the nature of the underpinning data processing may create an artificially declining trend, even when the absolute number...

Populations of endangered mammals are often small, fragmented and have low genetic variability that can reduce the ability to evolve in response to environmental changes. The endangered Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis) is a habitat specialist restricted to six small, isolated pockets of Afroalpine habitat, with a total population of fewer than 500 a...

The Posavina and Croatian Coldblood are Croatian autochthonous horse breeds with interwoven breeding histories for which studbooks have only recently been established. The Lipizzan breed has the oldest formalized breeding and no record of recent genetic introgression from other breeds in Croatia. We analyzed the genetic structure, interbreeding, an...

A total of 189 faecal samples of the critically endangered Darwin's fox (Pseudalopex fulvipes [Martin, 1837]), from different areas within Chiloé Island in southern Chile were examined for parasites eggs and oocysts using the sugar flotation technique. The results showed that 21.2% of the samples were positive to either one of nine helminthes and o...

Un total de 189 heces del zorro de Darwin (Pseudalopex fulvipes [Martin, 1837]) en peligro crítico de extinción, de diferentes localidades de la isla de Chiloé en el sur de Chile, se examinaron en busca de huevos de parásitos y oocitos usando la técnica de flotación en azúcar. Los resultados mostraron que el 21,2% de las muestras fue positivo a nue...

In the face of ever-declining biodiversity, zoos have a major role to play in species conservation. Written by professionals involved in in-situ conservation and restoration projects internationally, this is a critical assessment of the contribution of zoos to species conservation through evidence amassed from a wide range of sources. The first par...

This study examines the effect of a clumped, non‐defendable and abundant year‐round food resource (Cape fur seals) for black‐backed jackal Canis mesomelas social structure and spatial organization at Cape Cross Seal Reserve and the National West Coast Recreation Area in Namibia during the jackals' denning period in 2004 and 2005. Geo‐referenced obs...

Evidence is presented from morphological observations, multivariate and molecular analyses on the taxonomic status of specimens of Salanoia newly discovered at Lac Alaotra, Madagascar, which resemble but are phenotypically highly divergent from the monotypic species S. concolor. A detailed comparative description is provided, together with informat...

Black-backed jackals (Canis mesomelas, Schreber, 1775) survive in a wide range of environments. Their foraging strategies are highly variable in different habitats. Adaptations in foraging behaviour in relation to abundance and quality of food sources are expected to be highly pronounced in an extreme habitat like a desert. This study investigated...

Accumulation of area size when selecting ecoregions by different prioritization methods. Lines represent the cumulative area size of ecoregions when incrementally increasing the number of included ecoregions, which were continuously prioritized by species richness (blue), endemism (red), δ-endemism (black) and threat (green). Symbols denote the are...

Number of species unique to the prioritization method over prioritized ecoregion ranks. Lines represent unique species when incrementally increasing the number of included ecoregions, which were prioritized on the basis of species richness (blue), endemism (red), δ-endemism (black) and threat (green). Only the 250 highest ranking ecoregions are sho...

Databases used. (0.04 MB DOC)

Number of endangered species captured by prioritization metrics. (0.04 MB DOC)

In the face of accelerating species extinctions, map-based prioritization systems are increasingly useful to decide where to pursue conservation action most effectively. However, a number of seemingly inconsistent schemes have emerged, mostly focussing on endemism. Here we use global vertebrate distributions in terrestrial ecoregions to evaluate ho...

Severe population declines have resulted from the spillover of canine distemper virus (CDV) into susceptible wildlife, with both domestic and wild canids being involved in the maintenance and transmission of the virus. This study (March 2001 to October 2003) collated case data, serologic, pathologic, and molecular data to describe the spillover of...

Headstarting refers to the raising of hatchlings in captivity and subsequently releasing them into the wild and it is a widely used tool to protect endangered species by increasing survivorship. Evaluating the success of headstart programs is necessary but challenging. We evaluated a headstart program for the endangered Mona Island iguana Cyclura c...

The Salangid icefish Neosalanx taihuensis (Salangidae) is an economically important fish, which is endemic to China, restricted to large freshwater systems (e.g. lakes, large rivers and estuaries) and typically exhibit low vagility. The continuous distribution ranges from the temperate region of the Huai and Yellow River basins to the subtropical r...

Nested clade analysis. Statistical analysis of the current and historic patterns of phylogenetic and geographic associations.

We isolated and characterized 11 microsatellite loci in the Mona Island iguana (Cyclura cornuta stejnegeri). Eleven loci exhibit moderate to high allelic diversity (two to 12 alleles, mean = 4.5) and polymorphism (mean observed heterozygosity, 0.56; range, 0.26 to 0.78) in 41 adults. This marker set has low probability of identity and high parentag...

Gait selection is a strategy used by quadrupeds to meet the demands of locomotion under variable environmental conditions. The movement of black-backed jackals Canis mesomelas within a desert area was investigated. The usage and distribution of gaits in three distinct desert environments in the Namib Desert, Namibia, were analysed. The areas were c...

Headstarting refers to the raising of hatchlings in captivity and subsequently releasing them into the wild and it is a widely used tool to protect endangered species by increasing survivorship. Evaluating the success of headstart programs is necessary but challenging. We evaluated a headstart program for the endangered Mona Island iguana Cyclura c...

The pygmy hog, Sus salvanius, the smallest and rarest extant suid was first described as the only member of the genus Porcula. It is currently regarded as member of the genus Sus and a sister taxon of the domestic pig/Eurasian wild boar (Sus scrofa). Phylogenetic analyses of 2316 bp from three mtDNA loci (control-region, cytochrome b, 16S) by Bayes...

The golden monkey (Rhinopithecus roxellana) is one of the most endangered primate species due to its dramatically shrinking distribution during the past 400 years. Its populations are restricted to three isolated regions, Qinglin (QL), Sichuan/Gansu (SG), and Shennongjia (SNJ) in China. As with other snub-nosed monkeys in China and Vietnam, the bio...

The population of the endangered iguana Cyclura cornuta stejnegeri, endemic to Mona Island (Puerto Rico), is characterized by a low density and an adult-skewed age distribution. In this study we measured space use patterns in nine adult iguanas (five males and four females) during the non-breeding period in an undisturbed environment in order to de...

ABSTRACT • Disease epizootics can significantly influence host population dynamics and the structure and functioning of ecological communities. Sarcoptic mange Sarcoptes scabiei has dramatically reduced red fox populations Vulpes vulpes in several countries, including Britain, although impacts on demographic processes are poorly understood. We revi...