Hunting and plant community dynamics

        Although the direct impacts of defaunation driven by overhunting can be predicted to some degree, higher-order indirect effects on community structure remain poorly understood since Redford’s (1992) seminal paper and may have profound, long-term consequences for the persistence of other taxa, and the structure, productivity and resilience of terrestrial ecosystems (Cunningham et al. 2009). Severe population declines or extirpation of the world’s megafauna may result in dramatic changes to ecosystems, some of which have already been empirically demonstrated, while others have yet to be documented or remain inexact. Large vertebrates often have a profound impact on food webs and community dynamics through mobile-linkage mutualisms, seed predation, and seedling and sapling herbivory. Plant communities in tropical forests depleted of their megafauna may experience pollinationbottlenecks, reduced seed dispersal, monodominance of seedling cohorts, altered patterns of seedling recruitment, other shifts in the relative abundance of species, and various forms of functional compensation (Cordeiro and Howe 2003; Peres and Roosmalen 2003; Wang et al. 2007; Terborgh et al. 2008; Chapter 3). On the other hand, the net effects of large mammal defaunation depends on how the balance of interactions are affected by population declines in both mutualists (e.g. highquality seed dispersers) and herbivores (e.g. seed predators) (Wright 2003). For example, significant changes in population densities in wild pigs (Suidae) and several other ungulates and rodents, which are active seed predators, may have a major effect on seed and seedling survival and forest regeneration (Curran and Webb 2000). 

               Tropical forest floras are most dependent on large-vertebrate dispersers, with as many as 97% of all tree, woody liana and epiphyte species bearing fruits and seeds that are morphologically adapted to endozoochorous (passing through the gut of an animal) dispersal (Peres and Roosmalen 2003). Successful seedling recruitment in many flowering plants depends on seed dispersal services provided by large-bodied frugivores (Howe and Smallwood 1982), while virtually all seeds falling underneath the parent’s canopy succumb to density-dependent mortality—caused by fungal attack, other pathogens, and vertebrate and invertebrate seed predators (see review in Carson et al. 2008). A growing number of phytodemographic studies have examined the effects of large-vertebrate removal. Studies examining seedling recruitment under different levels of hunting pressure (or disperser abundance) reveal very different outcomes. At the community level, seedling density in overhunted forests can be indistinguishable, greater, or less than that in the undisturbed forests (Dirzo and Miranda 1991; Chapman and Onderdonk 1998; Wright et al. 2000), but the consequences of increased hunting pressure to plant regeneration depends on the patterns of depletion across different prey species. In persistently hunted Amazonian forests, where large-bodied primates are driven to local extinction or severely reduced in numbers (Peres and Palacios 2007), the probability of effective dispersal of largeseeded endozoochorous plants can decline by over 60% compared to non-hunted forests (Peres and Roosmalen 2003). Consequently, plant species with seeds dispersed by vulnerable game species are less abundant where hunters are active, whereas species with seeds dispersed by abiotic means or by small frugivores ignored by hunters are more abundant in the seedling and sapling layers (Nuñez-Iturri and Howe 2007; Wright et al. 2007; Terborgh et al. 2008). 

                However, the importance of dispersal- limitation in the absence of large frugivores depends on the degree to which their seed dispersal services are redundant to any given plant species (Peres and Roosmalen 2003). Furthermore, local extinction events in large-bodied species are rarely compensated by smaller species in terms of their population density, biomass, diet, and seed handling outcomes (Peres and Dolman 2000). Large vertebrates targeted by hunters often have a disproportionate impact on community structure and operate as “ecosystem engineers” (Jones et al. 1994; Wright and Jones 2006), either performing a key landscaping role in terms of structural habitat disturbance, or as mega-herbivores that maintain the structure and relative abundance of plant communities. For example, elephants exert a major role in modifying vegetation structure and composition as herbivores, seed dispersers, and agents of mortality for many small trees (Cristoffer and Peres 2003). Two similar forests with or without elephants show different succession and regeneration pathways, as shown by long-term studies in Uganda (Sheil and Salim 2004). Overharvesting of several other species holding a keystone landscaping role can lead to pervasive changes in the structure and function of ecosystems. For example, the decimation of North American beaver populations by pelt hunters following the arrival of Europeans profoundly altered the hydrology, channel geomorphology, biogeochemical pathways and community productivity of riparian habitats (Naiman et al. 1986). Mammal overhunting triggers at least two additional potential cascades: the secondary extirpation of dependent taxa and the subsequent decline of ecological processes mediated by associated species. For instance, overhunting can severely disrupt key ecosystem processes including nutrient recycling and secondary seed dispersal exerted by relatively intact assemblages of dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeinae) and other coprophagous invertebrates that depend on large mammals for adult and larval food resources (Nichols et al. 2009).

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Tropical forest disturbance

                Timber extraction in tropical forests is widely variable in terms of species selectivity, but even highly selective logging can trigger major ecological changes in the understory light environment, forest microclimate, and dynamics of plant regeneration. Even reduced-impact logging (RIL) operations can generate enough forest disturbance, through elevated canopy gap fracture, to greatly augment forest understory desiccation, dry fuel loads, and fuel continuity, thereby breaching the forest flammability threshold in seasonally-dry forests. During severe dry seasons, often aggravated by increasingly frequent continental- scale climatic events, extensive ground fires initiated by either natural or anthropogenic sources of ignition can result in a dramatically reduced biomass and biodiversity value of previously unburnt tropical forests (Barlow and Peres 2004, 2008). Despite these undesirable effects, large-scale commercial logging that is unsustainable at either the population or ecosystem level continues unchecked in many tropical forest frontiers (Curran et al. 2004; Asner et al. 2005). Yet surface fires aggravated by logging disturbance represent one of the most powerful mechanisms of functional and compositional impoverishment of remaining areas of tropical forests (Cochrane 2003), and arguably the most important climatemediated phase shift in the structure of tropical ecosystems

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Cascading effects of overexploitation on ecosystems

         
              All extractive systems in which the over harvested resource is one or more biological populations, can lead to pervasive trophic cascades and other unintended ecosystem-level consequences to non-target species. Most hunting, fishing, and collecting activities affect not only the primary target species, but also species that are taken accidentally or opportunistically. Furthermore, exploitation often causes physical damage to the environment, and has ramifications for other species through cascading interactions and changes in food webs. In addition, overexploitation may severely erode the ecological role of resource populations in natural communities. In other words, overexploited populations need not be entirely extirpated before they become ecologically extinct. In communities that are “half-empty” (Redford and Feinsinger 2001), populations may be reduced to sufficiently low numbers so that, although still present in the community, they no longer interact significantly with other species (Estes et al. 1989). Communities with reduced levels of species interactions may become pale shadows of their former selves. 

              Although difficult to measure, severe declines in large vertebrate populations may result in multi-trophic cascades that may profoundly alter the structure of marine ecosystems such as kelp forests, coral reefs and estuaries (Jackson et al. 2001), and analogous processes may occur in many terrestrial ecosystems. Plant reproduction in endemic island floras can be severely affected by population declines in flying foxes (pteropodid fruit bats) that serve as strong mutualists as pollinators and seed dispersers (Cox et al. 1991). In some Pacific archipelagos, several species may become functionally extinct, ceasing to effectively disperse large seeds long before becoming rare (McConkey and Drake 2006). A key agenda for future research will involve understanding the non-linearities between functional responses to the numeric abundance of strong interactors reduced by exploitation pressure and the quality of ecological services that depleted populations can perform. For example, what is the critical density of any given exploited population below which it can no longer fulfill its community-wide ecological role? 

                 In this section I concentrate on poorly known interaction cascades in tropical forest and marine environments, and discuss a few examples of how apparently innocuous extractive activities targeted to one or a few species can drastically affect the structure and functioning of these terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.

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Overexploitation in aquatic ecosystems

              Marine biodiversity loss, largely through overfishing, is increasingly impairing the capacity of the world’s oceans to provide food, maintain water quality, and recover from perturbations (Worm et al. 2006). Yet marine fisheries provide employment and income for 0.2 billion people around the world, and fishing is the mainstay of the economy of many coastal regions; 41 million people worked as fishers or fish farmers in 2004, operating 1.3 million decked vessels and 2.7 million open boats (FAO 2007). An estimated 14 million metric tons of fuel was consumed by the fish-catching sector at a cost equivalent to US$22 billion, or ~25% of the total revenue of the sector. In 2004, reported catches from marine and inland capture fisheries were 85.8 million and 9.2 million tons, respectively, which was worth US$84.9 billion at first sale. Freshwater catches taken every year for food have declined recently but on average 500 000 tons are taken from the Mekong river in South-East Asia; 210 000 tons are taken from the Zaire river in Africa; and 210 000 tons of fish are taken from the Amazon river in South America. Seafood consumption is still high and rising in the First World and has doubled in China within the last decade. Fish contributes to, or exceeds 50% of the total animal protein consumption in many countries and regions, such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, Congo, Indonesia, Japan or the Brazilian Amazon. Overall, fish provides more than 2.8 billion people with ~20% or more of their average per capita intake of animal protein. 

             The oscillation of good and bad years in marine fisheries can also modulate the protein demand from terrestrial wildlife populations (Brashares et al. 2004). The share of fish in total world animal protein supply amounted to 16% in 2001 (FAO 2004). These ‘official’ landing statistics tend to severely underestimate catches and total values due to the enormous unrecorded contribution of subsistence fisheries consumed locally. Although the world’s oceans are vast, most seascapes are relatively low-productivity, and 80% of the global catch comes from only ~20% of the area. Approximately 68% of the world’s catch comes from the Pacific and northeast Atlantic. At current harvest rates, most of the economically important marine fisheries worldwide have either collapsed or are expected to collapse. Current impacts of overexploitation and its consequences are no longer locally nested, since 52% of marine stocks monitored by the FAO in 2005 were fully exploited at their maximum sustainable level and 24% were overexploited or depleted, such that their current biomass is much lower than the level that would maximize their sustained yield (FAO 2007). The remaining onequarter of the stocks were either underexploited or moderately exploited and could perhaps produce more. The Brazilian sardine (Sardinella brasiliensis) is a classic case of an overexploited marine fishery. In the 1970s hey-day of this industry, 200 000 tons were captured in southeast Brazil alone every year, but landings suddenly plummeted to <20 000 tons by 2001. Despite new fishing regulations introduced following its collapse, it is unclear whether southern Atlantic sardine stocks have shown any sign of recovery.

             With the possible exception of herring and related species that mature early in life and are fished with highly selective equipment, many gadids (e.g. cod, haddock) and other non-clupeids (e.g. flatfishes) have experienced little, if any, recovery in as much as 15 years after 45–99% reductions in reproductive biomass (Hutchings 2000). Worse still, an analysis of 147 populations of 39 wild fish species concluded that historically overexploited species, such as North Sea herring, became more prone to extreme year-on-year variation in numbers, rendering them vulnerable to economic or demographic extinction (Minto et al. 2008). Marine fisheries are an underperforming global asset—yields could be much greater if they were properly managed. The difference between the potential and actual net economic benefits from marine fisheries is in the order of US$50 billion per year—equivalent to over half thevalue of the global seafood trade (World Bank 2008). The cumulative economic loss to the global economy over the last three decades is estimated to be approximately US$2 trillion, and in many countries fishing operations are buoyed up by subsidies, so that the global fishery economy to the point of landing is already in deficit. Commercial fishing activities disproportionately threaten large-bodied marine and freshwater species (Olden et al. 2007). This results in fishermen fishing down the food chain, targeting ever-smaller pelagic fish as they can no longer capture top predatory fish. This is symptomatic of the now widely known process of ‘fishing down marine food webs’. Such sequential

size-graded exploitation systems also take place in multi-species assemblages hunted in tropical forests (Jerozolimski and Peres et al 2003). 

               In the seas, overexploitation threatens the persistence of ecologically significant populations of many large marine vertebrates, including sharks, tunas and sea turtles. Regional scale populations of large sharks worldwide have declined by 90% or more, and rapid declines of >75% of the coastal and oceanic Northwest Atlantic populations of scalloped hammerhead, white, and thresher sharks have occurred in the past 15 years (Baum et al. 2003; Myers and Worm 2003; Myers et al. 2007). Much of this activity is profligate and often driven by the surging global demand for shark fins. For example, in 1997 line fishermen captured 186 000 sharks in southern Brazil alone, of which 83% were killed and discarded in open waters following the removal of the most lucrative body parts (C.M. Vooren, pers. comm.). Of the large-bodied coastal species affected by this trade, several have virtually disappeared from shallow waters (e.g. greynurse sharks, Carcharias taurus). Official figures show that 131 tons of shark fins, corresponding to US $2.4 million, were exported from Brazil to Asia in 2007. Finally, we know rather little about ongoing extinction processes caused by harvesting. For example, from a compilation of 133 local, regional and global extinctions of marine fish populations, Dulvy et al. (2003) uncovered that exploitation was the main cause of extinctions (55% of all populations), but these were only reported after a median 53-year lag following their real-time disappearance. Some 80% of all extinctions were only discovered through historical comparisons; e.g. the near-extinction of large skates on both sides of the Atlantic was only brought to the world’s attention several decades after the declines have occurred.

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Non-timber forest products

              Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) are biological resources other than timber which are extracted from either natural or managed forests (Peters 1994). Examples of exploited plant products include fruits, nuts, oil seeds, latex, resins, gums, medicinal plants, spices, dyes, ornamental plants, and raw materials such as firewood, Desmoncus climbing palms, bamboo and rattan. The socio-economic importance of NTFP harvest to indigenous peoples cannot be underestimated. Many ethnobotanical studies have catalogued the wide variety of useful plants (or plant parts) harvested by different aboriginal groups throughout the tropics. For example, the Waimiri-Atroari Indians of central Amazonia make use of 79% of the tree species occurring in a single 1 ha terra firme forest plot (Milliken et al. 1992), and 1748 of the ~8000 angiosperm species in the Himalayan region spanning eight Asian countries are used medicinally and many more for other purposes (Samant et al. 1998). Exploitation of NTFPs often involves partial or entire removal of individuals from the population, but the extraction method and whether vital parts are removed usually determine the mortality level in the exploited population. Traditional NTFP extractive practices are often hailed as desirable, low-impact economic activities in tropical forests compared to alternative forms of land use involving structural disturbance such as selective logging and shifting agriculture (Peters et al. 1989). As such, NTFP exploitation is usually assumed to be sustainable and a promising compromise between biodiversity conservation and economic development under varying degrees of market integration. The implicit assumption is that traditional methods of NTFP exploitation have little or no impact on forest ecosystems and tend to be sustainable because they have been practiced over many generations. However, virtually any form of NTFP exploitation in tropical forests has an ecological impact.

             The spatial extent and magnitude of this impact dependson the accessibility of the resource stock, the floristic composition of the forest, the nature and intensity of harvesting, and the particular species or plant part under exploitation. Yet few studies have quantitatively assessed the demographic viability of plant populations sourcing NTFPs. One exception are Brazil nuts (Bertholletia excelsa, Lecythidaceae) which comprise the most important wild seed extractive industry supporting millions of Amazonian forest dwellers for either subsistence or income. This wild seed crop is firmly established in export markets, has a history of 200 years of commercial exploitation, and comprises one of the most valuable non-timber extractive industries in tropical forests anywhere. Yet the persistent collection of B. excelsa seeds has severely undermined the patterns of seedling recruitment of Brazil nut trees. This has drastically affected the age structure of many natural populations to the point where persistently overexploited stands have succumbed to a process of senescence and demographic collapse, threatening this cornerston of the Amazonian extractive economy (Peres et al. 2003). A boom in the use of homeopathic remedies sustained by over collecting therapeutic and aromatic plants is threatening at least 150 species of European wild flowers and plants and driving many populations to extinction (Traffic 1998). Commercial exploitation of the Pau-Rosa or rosewood tree (Aniba rosaeodora, Lauraceae), which contains linalol, a key ingredient in luxury perfumes, involves a one-off destructive harvesting technique that almost invariably kills the tree. This species has consequently been extirpated from virtually its entire range in Brazilian Amazonia (Mitja and Lescure 2000). Channel 5 and other perfumes made with Pau-Rosa fragrance gained wide market demand decades ago, but
the number of processing plants in Brazil fell from 103 in 1966 to fewer than 20 in 1986, due to the dwindling resource base. Yet French perfume connoisseurs have been reluctant to accept replacing the natural Pau-Rosa fragrance with
synthetic substitutes, and the last remaining populations of Pau-Rosa remain threatened. 

              The same could be argued for a number of NTFPs for which the harvest by destructive practices involves a lethal injury to whole reproductive individuals. What then is the impact of NTFP extraction on the dynamics of natural populations? How does the impact vary with the life history of plants and animals harvested? Are current extraction rates truly sustainable? These are key questions in terms of the demographic sustainability of different NTFP offtakes, which will ultimately depend on the ability of the resource population to recruit new seedlings either continuously or in sporadic pulses while being subjected to a repeated history of exploitation. Unguarded enthusiasm for the role of NTFP exploitation in rural development partly stems from unrealistic economic studies reporting high market values. For example, Peters et al. (1989) reported that the net-value of fruit and latex extraction in the Peruvian Amazon was US$6330/ ha. This is in sharp contrast with a Mesoamerican study that quantified the local value of foods, construction materials, and medicines extracted from the forest by 32 indigenous Indian households (Godoy et al. 2000). The combined value of consumption and sale of forest goods ranged from US$18 to US$24 ha 1 yr 1, at the lower end of previous estimates (US$49 - US$1 089 ha 1 yr 1). NTFP extraction thus cannot be seen as a panacea for rural development and in many studies the potential value of NTFPs is exaggerated by unrealistic assumptions of high discount rates, unlimited market demands, availability of transportation facilities and absence of product substitution.

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Tropical forest vertebrates

             Humans have been hunting wildlife in tropical forests for over 100 000 years, but the extent of consumption has greatly increased over the last few decades. Tropical forest species are hunted for local consumption or sales in distant markets as food, trophies, medicines and pets. Exploitation of wild meat by forest dwellers has increased due to changes in hunting technology, scarcity of alternative protein, larger numbers of consumers, and greater access infrastructure. Recent estimates of the annual wild meat harvest are 23 500 tons in Sarawak (Bennett 2002), up to 164 692 tons in the Brazilian Amazon (Peres 2000), and up to 3.4 million tons in Central Africa (Fa and Peres 2001).
Hunting rates are already unsustainably high across vast tracts of tropical forests, averaging sixfold the maximum sustainable harvest in Central Africa (Fa et al. 2001). Consumption is both by rural and urban communities, who are often at the end of long supply chains that extend into many remote areas (Milner-Gulland et al. 2003). 

               The rapid acceleration in tropical forest defaunation due to unsustainable hunting initially occurred in Asia (Corlett 2007), is now sweeping through Africa, and is likely to move into the remotest parts of the neotropics (Peres and Lake 2003), reflecting human demographics in different continents. Hunting for either subsistence or commerce can profoundly affect the structure of tropical forest vertebrate assemblages, as revealed by both village- based kill-profiles (Jerozolimski and Peres 2003; Fa et al. 2005) and wildlife surveys in hunted and unhunted forests. This can be seen in the residual game abundance at forest sites subjected to varying degrees of hunting pressure, where overhunting often results in faunal biomass collapses, mainly through declines and local extinctions of large-bodied species (Bodmer 1995; Peres 2000). Peres and Palacios (2007) provide the first systematic estimates of the impact of hunting on the abundances of a comprehensive set of 30 reptile, bird, and mammal species across 101 forest sites scattered widely throughout the Amazon Basin and Guianan Shield. Considering the 12 most harvest sensitive species, mean aggregate population biomass was reduced almost eleven-fold from 979.8 kg/km2 in unhunted sites to only 89.2 kg/km2 in heavily hunted sites. 

              In KilumIjim, Cameroon, most large mammals, including elephants, buffalo, bushbuck, chimpanzees, leopards, and lions, have been lost as a result of hunting (Maisels et al. 2001). In Vietnam, 12 large vertebrate species have become virtually extinct over the last five decades primarily due to hunting (Bennett and Rao 2002). Pangolins and several other forest vertebrate species are facing regionalscale extinction throughout their range across southern Asia [Corlett 2007, TRAFFIC (The Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network) 2008], largely as a result of trade, and over half of all Asian freshwater turtle species are considered Endangered due to over-harvesting (IUCN 2007). In sum, game harvest studies throughout the tropics have shown that most unregulated, commercial hunting for wild meat is unsustainable (Robinson and Bennett 2000; Nasi et al. 2008), and that even subsistence hunting driven by local demand can severely threaten many medium to large-bodied vertebrate populations, with potentially far-reaching consequences to other species. However, persistent harvesting of multi-species prey assemblages can often lead to post-depletion equilibrium conditions in which slow-breeding, vulnerable taxa are eliminated and gradually replaced by fast-breeding robust taxa that are resilient to typical offtakes. For example, hunting in West African forests could now be defined as sustainable from the viewpoint of
urban bushmeat markets in which primarily rodents and small antelopes are currently traded, following a series of historical extinctions of vulnerable prey such as primates and large ungulates (Cowlishaw et al. 2005).

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Overexploitation in tropical forests

             Tropical deforestation is driven primarily by frontier expansion of subsistence agriculture and large development programs involving resettlement, agriculture, and infrastructure. However, animal and plant population declines are typically pre-empted by hunting and logging activity well before the coup de grâce of deforestation is delivered. It is estimated that between 5 and 7 million hectares of tropical forests are logged annually, approximately 68-79% of the area that was completely deforested each year between 1990 and 2005 [FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) 2007]. Tropical forests account for ~25% of the global industrial wood production worth US$400 billion or ~2% of the global gross domestic product [WCFSD (World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development) 1998]. Much of this logging activity opens up new frontiers to wildlife and non-timber resource exploitation, and catalyses the transition into a landscape dominated by slash-and burn and large-scale agriculture. Few studies have examined the impacts of selective logging on commercially valuable timber species and comparisons among studies are limited because they often fail to employ comparable methods that are adequately reported. The best case studies come from the most valuable timber species that have already declined in much of their natural ranges.

            For instance, the highly selective, but low intensity logging of broadleaf mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla), the most valuable widely traded Neotropical timber tree, is driven by the extraordinarily high prices in international markets, which makes it lucrative for loggers to open-up even remote wilderness areas at high transportation costs. Mechanized extraction of mahogany and other prime timber species impacts the forest by creating canopy gaps and imparting much collateral damage due to logging roads and skid trails (Grogan et al. 2008). Mahogany and other high-value tropical timber species worldwide share several traits that predispose them to commercial extirpation: excellent pliable wood of exceptional beauty; natural distributions in forests experiencing rapid conversion rates; low-density populations (often <1 tree/ha); and life histories generally characterized as non-pioneer late secondary, with fast growth rates, abiotic seed dispersal, and low-density seedlings requiring canopy disturbance for optimal seedling regeneration in the understory (Swaine and Whitmore 1988; Sodhi et al. 2008). One of the major obstacles to implementing a sustainable forestry sector in tropical countries is the lack of financial incentives for producers to limit offtakes to sustainable levels and invest in regeneration. Economic logic often dictates that trees should be felled whenever their rate of volume

increment drops below the prevailing interest rate (Pearce 1990). Postponing harvest beyond this point would incur an opportunity cost because profits from logging could be invested at a higher rate elsewhere.

            This partly explains why many slow-growing timber species from tropical forests and savannahs are harvested unsustainably (e.g. East African Blackwood (Dalbergia melanoxylon) in the Miombo woodlands of Tanzania; Ball 2004). This is particularly the case where land tenure systems are unstable, and where there are no disincentives against ‘hit-and-run’ operations that mine the resource capital at one site and move on to undepleted areas elsewhere. This is clearly shown in a mahogany study in Bolivia where the smallest trees felled are ~40 cm in diameter, well below the legal minimum size (Gullison 1998). At this size, trees are increasing in volume at about 4% per year, whereas real mahogany price increases have averaged at only 1%, so that a 40-cm mahogany tree increases in value at about 5% annually, slowing down as the tree becomes larger. In contrast, real interest rates in Bolivia and other tropical countries are often >10%, creating a strong economic incentive to liquidate all trees of any value regardless of resource ownership. Tropical deforestation is driven primarily by frontier expansion of subsistence agriculture and large development programs involving resettlement, agriculture, and infrastructure. However, animal and plant population declines are typically pre-empted by hunting and logging activity well before the coup de grâce of deforestation is delivered.

            It is estimated that between 5 and 7 million hectares of tropical forests are logged annually, approximately 68-79% of the area that was completely deforested each year between 1990 and 2005 [FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) 2007]. Tropical forests account for ~25% of the global industrial wood production worth US$400 billion or ~2% of the global gross domestic product [WCFSD (World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development) 1998]. Much of this logging activity opens up new frontiers to wildlife and non-timber resource exploitation, and catalyses the transition into a landscape dominated by slash-andburn and large-scale agriculture. Few studies have examined the impacts of selective logging on commercially valuable timber species and comparisons among studies are limited because they often fail to employ comparable methods that are adequately reported. The best case studies come from the most valuable timber species that have already declined in much of their natural ranges. For instance, the highly selective, but low intensity logging of broadleaf mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla), the most valuable widely traded Neotropical timber tree, is driven by the extraordinarily high prices in international markets, which makes it lucrative for loggers to open-up even remote wilderness areas at high transportation costs. Mechanized extraction of mahogany and other prime timber species impacts the forest by creating canopy gaps and imparting much collateral damage due to logging roads and skid trails (Grogan et al.

2008). Mahogany and other high-value tropical timber species worldwide share several traits that predispose them to commercial extirpation: excellent pliable wood of exceptional beauty; natural distributions in forests experiencing rapid conversion rates; low-density populations

(often <1 tree/ha); and life histories generally characterized as non-pioneer late secondary, with fast growth rates, abiotic seed dispersal, and low-density seedlings requiring canopy disturbance for optimal seedling regeneration in the understory (Swaine and Whitmore 1988; Sodhi et al. 2008). One of the major obstacles to implementing a sustainable forestry sector in tropical countries is the lack of financial incentives for producers to limit offtakes to sustainable levels and invest in regeneration.

             Economic logic often dictates that trees should be felled whenever their rate of volume increment drops below the prevailing interest rate (Pearce 1990). Postponing harvest beyond this point would incur an opportunity cost because profits from logging could be invested at a higher rate elsewhere. This partly explains why many slow-growing timber species from tropical forests and savannahs are harvested unsustainably (e.g. East African Blackwood (Dalbergia melanoxylon) in the Miombo woodlands of Tanzania; Ball 2004). This is particularly the case where land tenure systems are unstable, and where there are no disincentives against ‘hit-and-run’ operations that mine the resource capital at one site and move on to undepleted areas elsewhere. This is clearly shown in a mahogany study in Bolivia where the smallest trees felled are ~40 cm in diameter, well below the legal minimum size (Gullison 1998). At this size, trees are increasing in volume at about 4% per year, whereas real mahogany price increases have averaged at only 1%, so that a 40-cm mahogany tree increases in value at about 5% annually, slowing down as the tree becomes larger. In contrast, real interest rates in Bolivia and other tropical countries are often >10%, creating a strong economic incentive to liquidate all trees of any value regardless of resource ownership.

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Overexploitation

                In an increasingly human-dominated world, where most of us seem oblivious to the liquidation of Earth’s natural resource capital, exploitation of biological populations has become one of the most important threats to the persistence of global biodiversity. Many regional economies, if not entire civilizations, have been built on free-for-all extractive industries, and history is littered with examples of boom - and - bust economic cycles following the emergence, escalation and rapid collapse of unsustainable industries fuelled by raw renewable resources. The economies of many modern nation -states still depend heavily on primary extractive industries, such as fisheries and logging, and this includes countries spanning nearly the entire spectrum of per capita Gross National Product (GNP), such as Iceland and Cameroon. Human exploitation of biological commodities involves resource extraction from the land, freshwater bodies or oceans, so that wild animals, plants or their products are used for a wide variety of purposes ranging from food to fuel, shelter, fiber, construction materials, household and garden
items, pets, medicines, and cosmetics. 

               Overexploitation occurs when the harvest rate of any given population exceeds its natural replacement rate, either through reproduction alone in closed populations or through both reproduction and immigration from other populations. Many species are relatively insensitive to harvesting, remaining abundant under relatively high rates of offtake, whereas others can be driven to local extinction by even the lightest levels of offtake. Fishing, hunting, grazing, and logging are classic consumer-resource interactions and in natural systems such interactions tend to come into equilibrium with the intrinsic productivity of a given habitat and the rates at which resources are harvested. Furthermore, efficiency of exploitation by consumers and the highly variable intrinsic resilience to exploitation by resource populations may have often evolved over long periods. Central to these differences are species traits such as the population density (or stock size), the per capita growth rate of the population, spatial diffusion from other less harvested populations, and the direction and degree to which this growth responds to harvesting through either positive or negative density dependence. 

               For example, many long-lived and slow -growing organisms are particularly vulnerable to the additive mortality resulting from even the lightest offtake, especially if these traits are combined with low dispersal rates that can inhibit population diffusion from adjacent unharvested source areas, should these be available. These species are often threatened by over hunting in many terrestrial ecosystems, unsustainable logging in tropical forest regions, cactus “rustling” in deserts, overfishing in marine and freshwater ecosystems, or many other forms of unsustainable extraction. For example, overhunting is the most serious threat to large vertebrates in tropical forests (Cunningham et al. 2009), and overexploitation, accidental mortality and persecution caused by humans threatens approximately one-fifth (19%) of all tropical forest vertebrate species for which the cause of decline has been documented [IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) 2007]. Overexploitation is the most important cause of freshwater turtle extinctions (IUCN 2007) and the third-most important for freshwater fish extinctions, behind the effects of habitat loss and introduced species (Harrison and Stiassny 1999). 

               Thus, while population declines driven by habitatloss and degradation quite rightly receive a great deal of attention from conservation biologists (MEA 2006), we must also contend with the specter of the ‘empty’ or ‘half-empty’ forests, savannahs, wetlands, rivers, and seas, even if the physical habitat structure of a given ecosystem remains otherwise unaltered by other anthropogenic processes that degrade habitat quality. Overexploitation also threatens frogs: with Indonesia the main exporter of frog legs for markets in France and the US (Warkentin et al. 2009). Up to one billion wild frogs are estimated to be harvested every year for human consumption (Warkentin et al. 2009). I begin this chapter with a consideration of why people exploit natural populations, including the historical impacts of exploitation on wild plants and animals. This is followed by a review of effects of exploitation in terrestrial and aquatic biomes. Throughout the chapter, I focus on tropical forests and marine ecosystems because many plant and animal species in these realms have succumbed to some of the most severe and least understood overexploitation-related threats to population viability of contemporary times. I then explore impacts of exploitation on both target and non-target species, as well as cascading effects on the ecosystem. This leads to a reflection at the end of this chapter of resource management considerations in the real-world, and the clashes of culture between those concerned with either the theoretical underpinnings or effective policy solutions addressing the predicament of species imperiled by overexploitation.

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Patterns of species occurrence in fragmented landscapes

                Many studies have described the occurrence of species in fragments of different sizes, shapes, composition, land-use and context in the landscape. For species that primarily depend on fragmented habitat, particularly animals, fragment size is a key influence on the likelihood of occurrence. As fragment size decreases, the frequency of occurrence declines and the species may be absent from many small fragments. Such absences may be because the fragment is smaller than the minimum area required for a single individual or breeding unit, or for a self-sustaining population. Some species persist in fragmented landscapes by incorporating multiple fragments in their territory or daily foraging movements. In England, the tawny owl (Strix aluco) occupies territories of about 26 ha (hectares) in large deciduous woods, but individuals also persist in highly fragmented areas by including several small woods in their territory (Redpath 1995). 

                There is a cost, however: individuals using multiple woods have lower breeding success and there is a higher turnover of territories between years. Species that require different kinds of habitats to meet regular needs (e.g. for foraging and breeding) can be greatly disadvantaged if these habitats become isolated. Individuals may then experience difficulty in moving between different parts of the landscape to obtain their required resources. Amphibians that move between a breeding pond and other habitat, such as overwintering sites in forest, are an example. Other attributes (in addition to fragment size) that influence the occurrence of species include the type and quality of habitat, fragment shape, land use adjacent to the fragment, and the extent to which the wider landscape isolates populations. In the Iberian region of Spain, for example, the relative abundance of the Eurasian badger (Meles meles) in large forest fragments is significantly influenced by habitat quality and forest cover in the wider landscape (Virgos 2001). 

                 In areas with less than 20% forest cover, badger abundance in forests was most influenced by isolation (i.e. distance to a potential source area >10 000 ha), whereas in areas with 20–50% cover, badgers were most influenced by the quality of habitat in the forest fragments. A key issue for conservation is the relative importance of habitat loss versus habitat fragmentation (Fahrig 2003). That is, what is the relative importance of how much habitat remains in the landscape versus how fragmented it is? Studies of forest birds in landscapes in Canada and Australia suggest that habitat loss and habitat fragmentation are both significant influences, although habitat loss generally is a stronger influence for a greater proportion of species (Trczinski et al. 1999; Radford and Bennett 2007). Importantly, species respond to landscape pattern in different ways. In southern Australia, the main influence for the eastern yellow robin (Eopsaltria australis) was the total amount of wooded cover in the landscape; for the grey shrike-thrush (Colluricincla harmonica) it was wooded cover together with its configuration (favoring aggregated habitat); while for the musk lorikeet (Glossopsitta concinna) the influential factor was not wooded cover, but the configuration of habitat and diversity of vegetation types (Radford and Bennett
2007).

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Conceptual approaches

               The theory of island bio geography (MacArthur and Wilson 1967) had a seminal influence in stimulating ecological and conservation interest in fragmented landscapes. This simple, elegant model highlighted the relationship between the number of species on an island and the island’s area and isolation. It predicted that species richness on an island represents a dynamic balance between the rate of colonization of new species to the island and the rate of extinction of species already present. It was quickly perceived that habitat isolates, such as forest fragments, could also be considered as “islands” in a “sea” of developed land and that this theory provided a quantitative approach for studying their biota. This stimulated many studies in which species richness in fragments was related to the area and isolation of the fragment, the primary factors in island bio geographic theory. The development of landscape ecology contributed new ways of thinking about habitat fragments and landscape change. The concept of patches and connecting corridors set within a matrix (i.e. the background ecosystem or land-use type) became an influential paradigm (Forman and Godron 1986). It recognized the importance of the spatial context of fragments. 

               The environment surrounding fragments is greatly modified during landscape changes associated with fragmentation. Thus, in contrast to islands, fragments and their biota are strongly influenced by physical and biological processes in the wider landscape, and the isolation of fragments depends not only on their distance from a similar habitat but also on their position in the landscape, the types of surrounding land-uses and how they influence the movements of organisms (Saunders et al. 1991; Ricketts 2001). The influence of physical processes and disturbance regimes on fragments means that following habitat destruction and fragmentation, habitat modification also occurs. Mcintyre and Hobbs (1999) incorporated this complexity into a conceptual model by outlining four stages along a trajectory of landscape change. 

 These were:

(i) Intact landscapes, in which most original vegetation remains with little or no modification.

(ii) Variegated landscapes, dominated by the original vegetation, but with marked gradients of habitat modification. 
(iii) Fragmented landscapes, in which fragments are a minor component in a landscape dominated by other land uses.
(iv) Relict landscapes with little (<10%) cover of original vegetation, set within highly modified surroundings. 

            This framework emphasizes the dynamics of landscape change. Different stages along the trajectory pose different kinds of challenges for conservation management. Many species are not confined solely to fragments, but also occur in other land uses in modified landscapes. In Nicaragua, for example, riparian forests, secondary forests, forest fallows, live fences, and pastures with dispersed trees each support diverse assemblages of birds, bats, dung beetles and butterflies (Harvey et al. 2006). To these species, the landscape represents a mosaic of land uses of differing quality, rather than a contrast between “habitat” and “non-habitat”. Recognizing landscapes as mosaics emphasizes the need to appreciate all types of elements in
the landscape. 

              This perspective is particularly relevant in regions where cultural habitats, derived from centuries of human land-use, have important conservation values. Different species have different ecological attributes, such as their scale of movement, life history stages, longevity, and what constitutes habitat. These each influence how a species “perceives” a landscape, as well as its ability to survive in a modified landscape. Consequently, the same landscape may be perceived by different taxa as having a different structure and different suitability, and quite differently from the way that humans describe the landscape. A “species-centered” view of a landscape can be obtained by mapping contours of habitat suitability for any given species (Fischer et al. 2004).

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Land-use intensification and abandonment

              Humans have transformed a large fraction of the Earth’s land surface. Over the past three centuries, the global extent of cropland has risen sharply, from around 2.7 to 15 million km2, mostly at the expense of forest habitats (Turner et al. 1990). Permanent pasture lands are even more extensive, reaching around 34 million km2 by the mid-1990s (Wood et al. 2000). The rate of land conversion has accelerated over time: for instance, more land was converted to cropland from 1950 to 1980 than from 1700 to 1850 (MEA 2005). 

               Globally, the rate of conversion of natural habitats has finally begun to slow, because land readily convertible to new arable use is now in increasingly short supply and because, in temperate and boreal regions, ecosystems are recovering somewhat. Forest cover is now increasing in eastern and western North America, Alaska, western and northern Europe, eastern China, and Japan (Matthews et al. 2000; MEA 2005). During the 1990s, for instance, forest cover rose by around 29 000 km2 annually in the temperate and boreal zones, although roughly 40% of this increase comprised forest plantations of mostly non-native tree species (MEA 2005). Despite partial recovery of forest cover in some regions (Wright and Muller-Landau 2006), conversion rates for many ecosystems, such as tropical and subtropical forests and South American cerrado savanna-woodlands, remain very high. Because arable land is becoming scarce while agricultural demands for food and bio fuel feed stocks are still rising markedly (Koh and Ghazoul 2008), agriculture is becoming increasingly intensified in much of the world. Within agricultural regions, a greater fraction of the available land is actually being cultivated, the intensity of cultivation is increasing, and fallow periods are decreasing (MEA 2005). 

                Cultivated systems (where over 30% of the landscape is in croplands, shifting cultivation, confined-livestock production, or freshwater aquaculture) covered 24% of the global land surface by the year 2000. Thus, vast expanses of the earth have been altered by human activities. Old-growth forests have diminished greatly in extent in many regions, especially in the temperate zones; for instance, at least 94% of temperate broadleaf forests have been disturbed by farming and logging (Primack 2006). Other ecosystems, such as coniferous forests, are being rapidly converted from old-growth to semi-natural production forests with a simplified stand structure and species composition. Forest cover is increasing in parts of the temperate and boreal zones, but the new forests are secondary and differ from old-growth forests in species composition, structure, and carbon storage. Yet other ecosystems, particularly in the tropics, are being rapidly destroyed and degraded. For example,marine ecosystems have been heavily impacted by human activities. The large-scale transformations of land cover described here consider only habitat loss per se. Of the surviving habitat, much is beingdegraded in various ways such as by habitat fragmentation, increased edge effects, selective logging, pollution, overhunting, altered fire regimes, and climate change.

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Tropical and subtropical forests

               A second way to assess habitat loss is by contrastingmajor  biomes or ecosystem types. Today, tropical rainforests (also termed tropical moist and humid forests) are receiving the greatest attention, because they are being destroyed so rapidly and because they are the most biologically diverse of all terrestrial biomes. Of the roughly 16 million km2 of tropical rainforest that originally existed worldwide, less than 9 million km2 remains today (Whitmore 1997; MEA 2005). The current rate of rainforest loss is debated, with different estimates ranging from around 60 000 km2 (Achard et al. 2002) to 130 000 km2 per year (FAO 2000). Regardless of which estimate one adheres to, rates of rainforest loss are alarmingly high. Rates of rainforest destruction vary considerably among geographic regions. Of the world’s three major tropical regions, Southeast Asian forests are disappearing most rapidly in relative terms , while the African and New World tropics have somewhat lower rates of percent- annual forest loss (Sodhi et al. 2004). Such averages, however, disguise important smaller scale variation. 

               In the New World tropics, for example, the Caribbean, Meso American, and Andean regions are all suffering severe rainforest loss, but the relative deforestation rate for the region as a whole is buffered by the vastness of the Amazon. Likewise, in tropical Africa, forest loss is severe in West Africa, montane areas of East Africa, and Madagascar, but substantial forest still survives in the Congo Basin (Laurance 1999). Other tropical and subtropical biomes have suffered even more heavily than rainforests. Tropical dry forests (also known as monsoonal or deciduous forests) have been severely reduced, in part because they are easier to clear and burn than rainforests. For instance, along Central America’s Pacific coast, much less than 1% of the original dry forest survives. Losses of dry forest have been nearly as severe in Madagascar and parts of Southeast Asia (Laurance 1999; Mayaux et al. 2005).
 

                Mangrove forests, salt-tolerant ecosystems that grow in tropical and subtropical intertidal zones, have also been seriously reduced. Based on countries for which data exist, more than a third of all mangroves were lost in the last few decades of the 20th century (MEA 2005). From 1990 to 2000, over 1% of all mangrove forests were lost annually, with rates of loss especially high in Southeast Asia (Mayaux et al. 2005). Such losses are alarming given the high primary productivity of mangroves, their key role as spawning and rearing areas for economically important fish and shrimp species, and their importance for sheltering coastal areas from destructive storms and tsunamis (Danielsen et al. 2005).

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Geography of habitat loss

               Some regions of the Earth are far more affected by habitat destruction than others. Among the most imperiled are the so-called “biodiversity hotspots”, which contain high species diversity, many locally endemic species (those whose entire geographic range is confined to a small area), and which have lost at least 70% of their native vegetation (Myers et al. 2000). Many hotspots are in the tropics. The Atlantic forests of Brazil and rainforests of West Africa, both of which have been severely reduced and degraded, are examples of biodiversity hotspots. Despite encompassing just a small fraction (<2%) of the Earth’s land surface, hotspots may sustain over half of the world’s terrestrial species (Myers et al. 2000). Many islands have also suffered heavy habitat loss. For instance, most of the original natural habitat has already been lost in Japan, New Zealand, Madagascar, the Philippines, and Java (WRI 2003). 

               Other islands, such as Borneo, Sumatra, and New Guinea, still retain some original habitat but are losing it at alarming rates (Curran et al. 2004; MacKinnon 2006). Most areas of high human population density have suffered heavy habitat destruction. Such areas include much of Europe, eastern North America, South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, West Africa, Central America, and the Caribbean region, among others. Most of the biodiversity hotspots occur in areas with high human density and many still have rapid population growth (Cincotta et al. 2000). 

                Human populations are often densest in coastal areas, many of which have experienced considerable losses of both terrestrial habitats and nearby coral reefs. Among others, coastal zones in Asia, northern South America, the Caribbean, Europe, and eastern North America have all suffered severe habitat loss (MEA 2005). Finally, habitat destruction can occur swiftly in areas with limited human densities but rapidly expanding agriculture. Large expanses of the Amazon, for example, are currently being cleared for large-scale cattle ranching and industrial soy farming, despite having low population densities (Laurance et al. 2001). Likewise, in some relatively sparsely populated areas of Southeast Asia, such as Borneo, Sumatra, and New Guinea, forests are being rapidly felled to establish oilpalm
or rubber plantations (MacKinnon 2006; Laurance 2007; Koh and Wilcove 2008). Older agricultural frontiers, such as those in Europe, eastern China, the Indian Subcontinent, and eastern and midwestern North America, often have very little native vegetation remaining.

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Valuing Ecosystem Services

              Ecosystems and their constituent species provide an endless stream of products, functions, and services that keep our world running and make our existence possible. To many, even the thought of putting a price tag on services like photosynthesis, purification of water, and pollination of food crops may seem like hubris, as these are truly priceless services without which not only humans, but most of life would perish.A distinguished economist put it best in response to a seminar at the USA Federal Trade Commission, where the speaker downplayed the impact of global warming by saying agriculture and forestry “accounted for only three percent of the US gross national product”. The economist’s response was: “What does this genius think we’re going to eat?” (Naylor and Ehrlich 1997). Nevertheless, in our financially-driven world, we need to quantify the trade - offs involved in land use scenarios that maximize biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services versus scenarios that maximize profit from a single commodity. Without such assessments, special interests representing single objectives dominate the debate and sideline the integration of ecosystem services into the decision-making process (Nelson et al. 2009). 

               Valuing ecosystem services is not an end in itself, but is the first step towards integrating these services into public decision-making and ensuring the continuity of ecosystems that provide the services (Goulder and Kennedy 1997; National Research Council 2005; Daily et al. 2009). Historically, ecosystem services have been mostly thought of as free public goods, an approach which has too frequently led to the “tragedy of the commons” where vital ecosystem goods like clean water have been degraded and consumed to extinction (Daily 1997). Too often, ecosystem services have been valued, if at all, based on “marginal utility” (Brauman and Daily 2008). When the service (like cleanwater) is abundant, themarginal utility of one additional unit can be as low as zero. However, as the service becomes more scarce, the marginal utility of each additional unit becomes increasingly valuable (Goulder and Kennedy 1997). Using the marginal value for a service when it is abundant drastically underestimates the value of the service as it becomes scarcer. As Benjamin Franklin wryly observed, “When the well’s dry,we know the worth of water.” As the societal importance of ecosystem services becomes increasingly appreciated, there has been a growing realization that successful application of this concept requires a skilful combination of biological, physical, and social sciences, as well as the creation of new programs and institutions. 

              The scientific community needs to help develop the necessary quantitative tools to calculate the value of ecosystem services and to present them to the decision makers (Daily et al. 2009). A promising example is the InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs) system (Daily et al. 2009; Nelson 2009) developed by the Natural Capital Project (www.naturalcapital.org). However, good tools are valuable only if they are used. A more difficult goal is convincing the private and public sectors to incorporate ecosystem services into their decision - making processes (Daily et al. 2009). Nevertheless, with the socio-economic impacts and human costs of environmental catastrophes, such as Hurricane Katrina, getting bigger and more visible, and with climate change and related carbon sequestration schemes having reached a prominent place in the public consciousness, the value of these services and the necessity of maintaining them has become increasingly mainstream. Recent market-based approaches such as payments for Costa Rican ecosystem services, wetland mitigation banks, and the Chicago Climate Exchange have proven useful in the valuation of ecosystem services (Brauman and Daily 2008). Even though the planet’s ecosystems, the biodiversity they harbor, and the services they collectively provide are truly priceless, market-based and other quantitative approaches for valuing ecosystem services will raise the profile of nature’s services in the public consciousness, integrate these services into decision-making, and help ensure the continuity of ecosystem contributions to the healthy functioning of our planet and its residents.

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Nature’s Cures versus Emerging Diseases

            While many people know about how plants prevent erosion, protect water supplies, and “clean the air”, how bees pollinate plants or how owls reduce rodent activity, many lesser-known organisms not only have crucial ecological roles, but also produce unique chemicals and pharmaceuticals that can literally save people’s lives. Thousands of plant species are used medically by traditional, indigenous communities worldwide. These peoples’ ethno botanical knowledge has led to the patenting, by pharmaceutical companies, of more than a quarter of all medicines (Posey 1999), although the indigenous communities rarely benefit from these patents (Mgbeoji 2006). Furthermore, the eroding of traditions worldwide, increasing emigration from traditional, rural communities to urban areas, and disappearing cultures and languages mean that the priceless ethno botanical knowledge of many cultures is rapidly disappearing in parallel with the impending extinctions of many medicinal plants due to habitat loss and over harvesting (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005a). Some of the rainforest areas that are being deforested fastest, like the island of Borneo, harbor plant species that produce active anti-HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) agents (Chung 1996; Jassim and Naji 2003). 

             Doubtlessly, thousands more useful and vital plant compounds await discovery in the forests of the world, particularly in the bio diverse tropics (Laurance 1999; Sodhi et al. 2007)however, without an effective strategy that integrates community based habitat conservation, rewarding of local ethno botanical knowledge, and scientific research on these compounds, many species, the local knowledge of them, and the priceless cures they offer will disappear before scientists discover them.

              As with many of nature’s services, there is a flip side to the medicinal benefits of biodiversity, namely, emerging diseases ( Jones et al. 2008). The planet’s organisms also include countless diseases, many of which are making the transition to humans as people increasingly invade the habitats of the hosts of these diseases and consume the hosts themselves. Three quarters of human diseases are thought to have their origins in domestic or wild animals and new diseases are emerging as humans increase their presence in formerly wilderness areas (Daily and Ehrlich 1996; Foley et al. 2005). Some of the deadliest diseases, such as monkey pox, malaria, HIV and Ebola, are thought to have initially crossed from central African primates to the people who hunted, butchered, and consumed them (Hahn et al. 2000; Wolfe et al. 2005; Rich et al. 2009). Some diseases emerge in ways that show the difficulty of predicting the consequences of disturbing ecosystems. The extensive smoke from the massive 1997–1998 forest fires in South east Asia is thought to have led to the fruiting failure of many forest trees, forcing frugivorous bats to switch to fruit trees in pig farms. The bats, which host the Nipah virus, likely passed it to the pigs, from which the virus made the jump to people (Chivian 2002). Another classic example from Southeast Asia is the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). 

            So far having killed 774 people, the SARS coronavirus has been recently discovered in wild animals like the masked palm civet (Paguma larvata) and raccoon dog (Nyctereuteus procyonoides) that are frequently consumed by people in the region (Guan et al. 2003). SARS like corona viruses have been discovered in bats (Li et al. 2005) and the virus was probably passed to civets and other animals as they ate fruits partially eaten and dropped by those bats (Jamie H. Jones, personal communication). 

              It is probable that SARS made the final jump to people through such animals bought for food in wildlife markets. The recent emergence of the deadly avian influenza strain H5N1 provides another good example. Even though there are known to be at least 144 strains of avian flu, only a few strains kill people. However, some of the deadliest pandemics have been among these strains, including H1N1, H2N, and H3N2 (Cox and Subbarao 2000). H5N1, the cause of the recent bird flu panic, has a 50% fatality rate and may cause another human pandemic. At low host densities, viruses that become too deadly, fail to spread. It is likely that raising domestic birds in increasingly higher densities led to
the evolution of higher virulence in H5N1, as it became easier for the virus to jump to another host before it killed its original host. There is also a possibility that increased invasion of wilderness areas by people led to the jump of H5N1 from wild birds to domestic birds, but that is yet to be proven. Malaria, recently shown to have jumped from chimpanzees to humans (Rich et al. 2009), is perhaps the best example of a resurging disease that increases as a result of tropical deforestation (Singer and Castro 2001; Foley et al. 2005; Yasuoka and Levins 2007). 

               Pearson (2003) calculated that every 1% increase in deforestation in the Amazon leads to an 8% increase in the population of the malaria vector mosquito (Anopheles darlingi). In addition, some immigrants colonizing deforested areas brought new sources of malaria (Moran 1988) whereas other immigrants come from malaria-free areas and thus become ideal hosts with no immunity (Aiken and Leigh 1992). Collectively, the conditions leading to and resulting from tropical deforestation, combined with climate change, human migration, agricultural intensification, and animal trafficking create the perfect storm for the emergence of new diseases as well as the resurgence of old ones. In the face of rapid global change, ecologically intact and relatively stable communities may be our best weapon against the emergence of new diseases.

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Mobile Links

             “Mobile links” are animal species that provide critical ecosystem services and increase ecosystem resilience by connecting habitats and ecosystems as they move between them (Gilbert 1980; Lundberg and Moberg 2003;). Mobile links are crucial for maintaining ecosystem function, memory, and resilience (Nystrm and Folke 2001). The three main types of mobile links: genetic, process, and resource links (Lundberg and Moberg 2003), encompass many fundamental ecosystem services (Sekercioglu 2006a, 2006b). Pollinating nectarivores and seed dispersing frugivores are genetic links that carry genetic material from an individual plant to another plant or to a habitat suitable for regeneration, respectively. Trophic process links are grazers, such as antelopes, and predators, such as lions, bats, and birds of prey that influence the populations of plant, invertebrate, and vertebrate prey. Scavengers, such as vultures, are crucial process links that hasten the decomposition of potentially disease-carrying carcasses (Houston 1994). Predators often provide natural pest control (Holmes et al. 1979). Many animals, such as fish-eating birds that nest in colonies, are resource links that transport nutrients in their droppings and often contribute significant resources to nutrient-deprived ecosystems (Anderson and Polis 1999). Some organisms like woodpeckers or beavers act as physical process linkers or “ecosystem engineers” (Jones et al. 1994). By building dams and flooding large areas, beavers engineer ecosystems, create new wetlands, and lead to major changes in species composition. In addition to consuming insects (trophic linkers), many woodpeckers also engineer their environment and build nest holes later used by a variety of other species (Daily et al. 1993). Through mobile links, distant ecosystems and habitats are linked to and influence one another (Lundberg and Moberg 2003). 

               The long-distance migrations of many species, such as African antelopes, songbirds, waterfowl, and gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) are particularly important examples of critical mobile links. However, many major migrations are disappearing (Wilcove 2008) and nearly two hundred migratory bird species are threatened or near threatened with extinction (Sekercioglu 2007). Dispersing seeds is among the most important functions of mobile links. Vertebrates are the main seed vectors for flowering plants (Regal 1977; Tiffney and Mazer 1995), particularly woody species (Howe and Smallwood 1982; Levey et al. 1994; Jordano 2000). This is especially true in the tropics where bird seed dispersal may have led to the emergence of flowering plant dominance (Regal 1977; Tiffney and Mazer 1995). Seed dispersal is thought to benefit plants in three major ways (Howe and Smallwood 1982):
 

• Escape from density-dependent mortality caused by pathogens, seed predators, competitors, and herbivores (Janzen-Connell escape hypothesis).

• Chance colonization of favorable but unpredictable sites via wide dissemination of seeds. 

• Directed dispersal to specific sites that are particularly favorable for establishment and survival.

               Although most seeds are dispersed over short distances, long-distance dispersal is crucial (Cain et al. 2000), especially over geological time scales during which some plant species have been calculated to achieve colonization distances 20 times higher than would be possible without vertebrate seed dispersers (Cain et al. 2000). Seed dispersers play critical roles in the regeneration and restoration of disturbed and degraded ecosystems (Wunderle 1997;), including newly-formed volcanic soils (Nishi and Tsuyuzaki 2004). Plant reproduction is particularly pollination limited in the tropics relative to the temperate zone (Vamosi et al. 2006) due to the tropics greater biodiversity, and up to 98% of tropical rainforest trees are pollinated by animals (Bawa 1990). Pollination is a critical ecosystem function for the continued persistence of the most biodiverse terrestrial habitats on Earth. Nabhan and Buchmann (1997) estimated that more than 1200 vertebrate and about 289 000 invertebrate species are involved in pollinating over 90% of flowering plant species (angiosperms) and 95% of food crops. Bees, which pollinate about two thirds of the world’s flowering plant species and three quarters of food crops (Nabhan and Buchmann 1997), are the most important group of pollinators. In California alone, their services are estimated to be worth $4.2 billion (Brauman and Daily 2008). However, bee numbers worldwide are declining (Nabhan and Buchmann 1997). In addition to the ubiquitous European honeybee (Apis mellifera), native bee species that depend on natural habitats also provide valuable services to farmers, exemplified by Costa Rican forest bees whose activities increase coffee yield by 20% near forest fragments (Ricketts et al. 2004). 

              Some plant species mostly depend on a single (Parra et al. 1993) or a few(Rathcke 2000) pollinator species. Plants are more likely to be pollinator-limited than disperser limited (Kelly et al. 2004) and a survey of pollination experiments for 186 species showed that about half were pollinator-limited (Burd 1994). Compared to seed dispersal, pollination is more demanding due to the faster ripening rates and shorter lives of flowers (Kelly et al. 2004). Seed disperser and pollinator limitation are often more important in island ecosystems with fewer species, tighter linkages, and higher vulnerability to disturbance and introduced species. Island plant species are more vulnerable to the extinctions of their pollinators sincemany island plants have lost their ability to self-pollinate and have become completely dependent on endemic pollinators (Cox and Elmqvist 2000). Pollination limitation due to the reduced species richness of pollinators on islands likeNew Zealand and Madagascar (Farwig et al. 2004) can significantly reduce fruit sets and probably decrease the reproductive success of dioecious plant species. Predators are important trophic process links and can control the populations of pest species. Formillennia, agricultural pests have been competing with people for the food and fiber plants that feed and clothe humanity. Pests, particularly herbivorous insects, consume 25–50% of humanity’s crops every year (Pimentel et al. 1989). In the US alone, despite the US$25 billion spent on pesticides annually (Naylor and Ehrlich 1997), pests destroy 37% of the potential crop yield (Pimentel et al. 1997). 

             However, many pests have evolved resistance to the millions of tons of synthetic pesticide sprayed each year (Pimentel and Lehman 1993), largely due to insects’ short generation times and their experience with millions of years of coevolution with plant toxins (Ehrlich and Raven 1964). Consequently, these chemicals poison the environment (Carson 1962), lead to thousands of wildlife fatalities every year, and by killing pests’ natural enemies faster than the pests themselves, often lead to the emergence of new pest populations (Naylor and Ehrlich 1997). As a result, the value of natural pest control has been increasingly recognized world wide, some major successes have been achieved, and natural controls now form a core component of “integrated pest management” (IPM) that aims to restore the natural pest-predator balance in agricultural ecosystems (Naylor and Ehrlich 1997). Species that provide natural pest control range from bacteria and viruses to invertebrate and vertebrate predators feeding on insect and rodent pests (Polis et al. 2000; Perfecto et al. 2004; Sekercioglu 2006b). For example, a review by Holmes (1990) showed that reductions in moth and butterfly populations due to temperate forest birds was mostly between 40–70% at low insect densities, 20–60% at intermediate densities, and 0–10% at high densities. Although birds are not usually thought of as important control agents, avian control of insect herbivores and consequent reductions in plant damage can have important economic value (Mols and Visser 2002). Takekawa and Garton (1984) calculated avian control of western spruce budworm in northern Washington State to be worth at least US$1820/ km2/year. To make Beijing greener for the 2008 Olympics without using chemicals, entomologists reared four billion parasitic wasps to get rid of the defoliating moths in less than three months (Rayner 2008). Collectively, natural enemies of crop pests may save humanity at least US $54 billion per year, not to mention the critical importance of natural controls for food security and human survival (Naylor and Ehrlich 1997). Promoting natural predators and preserving their native habitat patches like hedgerows and forests may increase crop yields, improve food security, and lead to a healthier environment. Often underappreciated are the scavenging and nutrient deposition services of mobile links. Scavengers like vultures rapidly get rid of rotting carcasses, recycle nutrients, and lead other animals to carcasses (Sekercioglu 2006a). Besides their ecological significance, vultures are particularly important in many tropical developing countries where sanitary waste and carcass disposal programs may be limited or non-existent (Prakash et al. 2003) and where vultures contribute to human and ecosystem health by getting rid of refuse (Pomeroy 1975), feces (Negro et al. 2002), and dead animals (Prakash et al. 2003). Mobile links also transport nutrients from one habitat to another. 

              Some important examples are geese transporting terrestrial nutrients towet lands (Post et al. 1998) and seabirds transferring marine productivity to terrestrial ecosystems, especially in coastal areas and unproductive island systems (Sanchez-pinero and Polis 2000). Seabird droppings (guano) are enriched in important plant nutrients such as calcium, magnesium, nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium (Gillham1956).Murphy (1981) estimated that seabirds around the world transfer 104 to 105 tons of phosphorous from sea to land every year. Guano also provides an important source of fertilizer and income to many people living near seabird colonies. Scavengers and seabirds provide good examples of how the population declines of ecosystem service providers lead to reductions in their services (Hughes et al. 1997). Scavenging and fish eating birds comprise the most threatened avian functional groups, with about 40% and 33%, respectively, of these species being threatened or near threatened with extinction (Sekercioglu et al. 2004). The large declines in the populations of many scavenging and fish-eating species mean that even if none of these species go extinct, their services are declining substantially. Seabird losses can trigger trophic cascades and ecosystem shifts (Croll et al. 2005). Vulture declines can lead to the emergence of public health problems. In India, Gyps vulture populations declined as much as 99% in the 1990s (Prakash et al. 2003). Vultures compete with feral dogs, which often carry rabies. As the vultures declined between 1992 and 2001, the numbers of feral dogs increased 20-fold at a garbage dump in India (Prakash et al. 2003). Most of world’s rabies deaths take place in India (World Health Organization 1998) and feral dogs replacing vultures is likely to aggravate this problem. Mobile links, however, can be double-edged swords and can harm ecosystems and human populations, particularly in concert with human related poor land-use practices, climate change, and introduced species. 

               Invasive plants can spread via native and introduced seed dispersers (Larosa et al. 1985; Cordeiro et al. 2004). Land use change can increase the numbers ofmobile links that damage distant areas, such as when geese overload wetlands with excessive nutrients (Post et al. 1998). Climate change can lead to asynchronies in insect emergence and their predators timing of breeding (Both et al. 2006), and in flowering and their pollinators lifecycles (Harrington et al. 1999). Mobile links are often critical to ecosystem functioning as sources of “external memory” that promote the resilience of ecosystems (Scheffer et al. 2001). More attention needs to be paid to mobile links in ecosystem management and biodiversity conservation (Lundberg and Moberg 2003). This is especially the case for migrating species that face countless challenges during their annual migrations that sometimes cover more than 20 000 kilometers (Wilcove 2008). Some of the characteristics that make mobile links important for ecosystems, such as high mobility and specialized diets, also make them more vulnerable to human impact. Protecting pollinators, seed dispersers, predators, scavengers, nutrient depositors, and other mobile linksmust be a top conservation priority to prevent collapses in ecosystem services provided by these
vital organisms.

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