Human influences on the tropical forest wildlife

Type :

Presentation

Pages :

7 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

11/21/2008

Category :

Political science

Sub category :

Ecology & environment

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Summary :

Introduction.
Hunting.
1. Estimates of wild meat harvest.
2. Subsistence hunting.
3. Overhunting.
4. Aggravating effects.
Selective logging.
1. Patterns of adaptation.
2. Effect of logging method.
Forest wildfires.
Fire-induced mortality.
Post-burn survival.
Conclusion.

Abstract

Different patterns of anthropogenic forest disturbance can affect forest wildlife in both tropical and temperate regions in many ways. The overall impact of different sources of structural and nonstructural disturbance may depend on: (1) the groups of organisms considered; (2) the evolutionary history of analogous forms of natural disturbance; and (3) whether forest ecosystems are left to recover over sufficiently long intervals following a disturbance event. The wide range of human-induced disturbance events are widely variable in intensity, duration and periodicity and are often mediated by numerous economic activities including timber and non-timber resource extraction, other causes of forest degradation, forest fragmentation, and forest conversion to other forms of land use. Examples of human enterprises that can severely affect wildlife may include hunting, selective logging at varying degrees of intensity, slash-and-burn agriculture, plantation forestry, selective removal of the understory to produce shade-tolerant crops, and outright deforestation for large-scale livestock operations. The resulting faunal assemblages can be drastically disﬁgured in highly modiﬁed forest landscapes compared to those in truly undisturbed forest lands containing a full complement of plant and animal species, which are being rapidly conﬁned to the best-guarded strictly protected areas or the remote, roadless wildlands in the last remaining pristine forests.