Amazon basin

Population and ecosystem-level consequences of subsistence hunting in neotropical forests

Project team Primary contacts Carlos Peres Additional members Erwin Palacios Whaldener Endo

Project summary

Wildlife game harvest is arguably the most widespread but least detectable form of human disturbance in tropical forests and has profound consequences to the structure of large vertebrate communities, even in otherwise entirely intact forest sites. This project examines the population and community-wide effects of game harvest throughout neotropical forests, and the cascading effects of hunting on nongame vertebrate species and plant populations that depend on large-bodied game species as seed vectors.  Over the years, we have been involved in quantifying game harvest practices at a number of tribal and nontribal local communities across the Amazon, and the population-level impact of hunting using the largest ever standardized series of line-transect surveys deployed in a single region of tropical forest. We have also attempted to quantify the spatial extent of hunting pressure around village settlements and, using a number of accessibility models, predict the extent and intensity of hunting and other extractive activities right across the Amazon. Finally, we have been involved in a quantitative meta-analysis of the effects of game harvest across neotropical forests, providing some of the first continental and intercontinental scale comparisons of the pervasive effects of hunting for either subsistence or commerce.

Key publications

Peres C.A. & E. Palacios. 2007. Basin-Wide Effects of Game Harvest on Vertebrate Population Densities in Amazonian Forests: Implications for Animal-Mediated Seed Dispersal. Biotropica 39: 304-315.

Peres, C.A. & Lake, I.R. 2003. Extent of nontimber resource extraction in tropical forests: accessibility to game vertebrates by hunters in the Amazon basin.  Conservation Biology 17:521-535.

Peres, C.A. and H.S. Nascimento. 2006. Impact of game hunting by the Kayapó of southeastern Amazonia: implications for wildlife conservation in tropical forest indigenous reserves. Biodiversity and Conservation 15:2627–2653.

Fa, J.E., C.A. Peres & J. Meeuwig. 2002. Bushmeat exploitation in tropical forests: an intercontinental comparison. Conservation Biology 16:232-237

Peres, C.A. 2000. Effects of subsistence hunting on vertebrate community structure in Amazonian forests. Conservation Biology 14:240-253.

Peres, C.A. 1990. Effects of hunting on western Amazonian primate communities. Biological Conservation 54:47–59.