Human presence near the Central American Forest violates the behavioral models of several mammals for a new report.
What happened?
A study published by the Yale Environment School found that anthropogenic activity disrupts the charts of carnivorous animals living in the El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve in Chiapas, Mexico.
The researchers placed 33 camera traps in the nucleus and buffer zone in the cloud forest and private land in Montana just outside the reserve. They filmed thousands of images to track behavioral patterns of species such as cougars, ocelons, Margi, Thaira, gray foxes and passion from May to November 2023.
According to a summary of Phys.org, the discoveries show that the highest levels of human presence are in buffer zones. This surprised the team as these areas allow small -scale agricultural practices, but otherwise it is assumed that they separate the protected main areas of private property.
“One of the most unexpected discoveries was that the human presence is highest in the buffer zone rather than in land outside the reserve, suggesting that buffer zones can act as hot spots for interactions between man-life life, not as transitional areas outside the reserve,” said lead author German Gonzalez.
Although the daily cycles of most species were usually unchanged, they adjusted the time of their schedules. For example, gray foxes, which usually increase their activity at night, become more active during the day in regions with a larger human presence. Meanwhile, the oceans were more like than expected in buffer zones.
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Why are these changes in behavior important?
Researchers have expressed concern that carnivores that significantly change their models to avoid meetings with people can adversely affect the ecosystem.
Hunting schedules can affect the dynamics of predators and the presence of food sources. In addition, there may be an increase in competition between species that have similar diets and try to avoid human contact.
“Similar changes to the behavior of carnivores can have huge consequences for interactions with other types of carnivores and loots, but also to encounter probabilities with domestic species and people, thus inciting conflicts,” said Neyema Harris.
Scientists have also written that anthropogenic pressure, which continues to be unmanageable, can undermine efforts to protect biodiversity by causing “increased disouting, habitat fragmentation and conflicts between human-and-life”.
What is being done to mitigate interactions between man and wildlife?
The authors of the study note that plans to increase protected areas by up to 30% by the end of the decade within the Global Biodiversity Framework in Kunming-Monreal are at work.
However, they also called on future wildlife management strategies to look at changes in land use and sustainable resource practices to help humans and cohabitation of humans and wildlife.
“Our discoveries emphasize the need for adaptive conservation strategies that go beyond the zoning and use of land and include integrated approaches that include local communities in planning protection and implementation,” Gonzalez said.
“We hope that local conservation agencies can use the results of our survey to guide the future work that explores more specific environmental and humans to better understand what moves these changes in the activity of carnivores in El Triunfo.”
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