Abstract
Protected areas (PAs) in the tropics are vulnerable to human encroachment, and, despite formal protection, they do not fully mitigate anthropogenic threats to habitats and biodiversity. However, attempts to quantify the effectiveness of PAs and to understand the status and changes of wildlife populations in relation to protection efficiency remain limited. Here, we used camera‐trapping data collected over 8 consecutive years (2009–2016) to investigate the yearly occurrences of medium‐to‐large mammals within the Udzungwa Mountains National Park (Tanzania), an area of outstanding importance for biological endemism and conservation. Specifically, we evaluated the effects of habitat and proxies of human disturbance, namely illegal hunting with snares and firewood collection (a practice that was banned in 2011 in the park), on species' occurrence probabilities. Our results showed variability in species' responses to disturbance: The only species that showed a negative effect of the number of snares found on occurrence probability was the Harvey's duiker, a relatively widespread forest antelope. Similarly, we found a moderate positive effect of the firewood collection ban on only the suni, another common antelope, and a negative effect on a large opportunistic rodent, the giant‐pouched rat. Importantly, we found evidence of temporal stability in occurrence probability for all species over the 8‐year study period. Our findings suggest that well‐managed PAs can sustain mammal populations in tropical forests. However, variability among species in their responses to anthropogenic disturbance necessitates consideration in the design of conservation action plans for multiple taxa.
Highlights
Tropical forests are the most biologically rich ecosystems on earth (Myers, Mittermeier, Mittermeier, Fonseca, & Kent, 2000), and their rapid disruption imperils global biodiversity more than any other contemporary phenomenon (Gibson et al, 2011)
Our findings suggest that well-managed Protected areas (PAs) can sustain mammal populations in tropical forests
Using systematic camera-trapping data and hierarchical modeling, we studied the occurrences of forest mammals over 8 consecutive years (2009–2016) within the Udzungwa Mountains National Park (Tanzania)
Summary
Many PAs in the tropics are vulnerable to human encroachment (Bruner, Gullison, Rice, & Fonseca, 2001; Laurance et al, 2012) and do not fully mitigate threats to habitat and biodiversity This is due to multiple reasons including chronic understaffing, inadequate funding, and political instability hampering adequate law enforcement (Bruner et al, 2001; Laurance et al, 2012; Naughton-Treves, Holland, & Brandon, 2005; Tranquilli et al, 2014). Selective firewood harvesting is a source of forest degradation, especially in fragmented and densely populated landscapes, when biomass removal exceeds forest productivity (Specht, Pinto, Albuquerque, Tabarelli, & Melo, 2015) It may change forest composition and ecosystem functioning, with cascading effects on the structure of wildlife populations and communities (Naughton-Treves, Kammen, & Chapman, 2007). We expected average occurrence probability for the majority of species to be relatively stable over the 8-year period, due to the documented effectiveness of management in the park (Oberosler et al, 2019)
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