Abstract
Logging and mining are widespread in most West African countries and considering their socio-economic importance, little is known about their ecological impacts. In this study, we investigated the effects of chainsaw milling (logging) and artisanal mining on terrestrial small mammal communities in a tropical forest in Ghana. For this, we compared abundance, diversity measures and community composition of small mammals active at the forest floor in logged, mined and undisturbed forest sites. We found that abundance was higher in logged and undisturbed forest sites than in mined sites. Small mammal species richness, Shannon diversity and Pielou’s evenness did not differ significantly among the three forest disturbance categories. Community composition of small mammals varied between mined and undisturbed sites as well as between mined and logged sites, suggesting differential species responses to altered environments. This may be due to the presence of pits in mined forest sites, hence a reduction in exploitable ground habitat structures for shelter, nesting or food. Overall, our results suggest that artisanal mining has strong impacts on community composition of forest floor small mammals in tropical forests while the effect of logging by chainsaw milling activities is minimal, especially when practiced at low intensity. This effect was moderated by elevation and distance to streams that equally shaped small mammal communities. More research on the effects of specific forms of logging and mining activities on small mammals are urgently needed to better protect species in forests impacted by logging and mining.
Highlights
Biodiversity in tropical forests is increasingly threatened by forest degradation despite the efforts to curb deforestation (Malhi et al 2014; Climate Focus 2015)
We investigated the effects of chainsaw milling and artisanal mining on terrestrial small mammal communities in a tropical forest in Ghana
Our results suggest that artisanal mining has strong impacts on community composition of forest floor small mammals in tropical forests while the effect of logging by chainsaw milling activities is minimal, especially when practiced at low intensity
Summary
Biodiversity in tropical forests is increasingly threatened by forest degradation despite the efforts to curb deforestation (Malhi et al 2014; Climate Focus 2015). In West Africa, about 14% of the total land area is covered with forests, many of them being biodiversity hotspots (FAO 2003). Forests are threatened by several anthropogenic pressures such as logging and mining (Jones et al 2018). This has resulted in an annual forest loss of about 1.2 million hectares in West Africa since 1990 (FAO 2003). In Ghana, the average annual deforestation within protected forest reserves was estimated at 0.6% between 1990 and 2015 (Acheampong et al 2019). Lack of economic opportunities and ineffective environmental policies have been highlighted as the drivers of deforestation especially where human population is rapidly increasing (Geist and Lambin 2002) and the majority of the local human population depends on forests for their livelihoods (Appiah et al 2009; Hussain et al 2019)
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