Throughout the tropics, animal populations are experiencing alarming declines due to poaching and over-hunting. Surprisingly, hunted tropical forests have up to 66% lower plant biodiversity than un-hunted forests. Why? This study seeks to answer that question, using an experiment which mimics the effect of hunting by keeping animals out of forest patches with fences. Changes in plant composition and diversity inside and outside the fences have been monitored for 14 years. In this study, characteristics of plants which mediate plant-animal interactions are being measured for each plant species. Plants with contrasting characteristics are compared to see if they respond differently to the absence of animals. The responsive plant characteristics act as 'fingerprints', allowing researchers to identify the mechanisms of species loss.
Why care about tropical biodiversity loss? Tropical biodiversity provides humanity with important ecosystem services and natural resources, often for free. For humans, wild tropical plants represent a vast resource of disease resistance genes for domesticated relatives, new food plants, potent anti-microbial compounds, effective anti-cancer drugs, and more. Plant diversity improves the quality of ecosystem services such as pollination and carbon storage. Biodiversity is not a renewable resource. Once species are extinct, they cannot be recovered. Knowledge gained from this study about an under-appreciated threat to biodiversity, hunting, will enable park managers, biologists, and policy makers to better protect this irreplaceable resource.
