Limited carbon and biodiversity co-benefits for tropical forest mammals and birds

Lydia Beaudrot; Kailin Kroetz; Patricia Alvarez-Loayza; Ieda Amaral; Thomas Breuer; Christine Fletcher; Patrick A. Jansen; David Kenfack; Marcela Guimarães Moreira Lima; Andrew R. Marshall; Emanuel H. Martin; Mireille Ndoundou-Hockemba; Timothy O'Brien; Jean Claude Razafimahaimodison; Hugo Romero-Saltos; Francesco Rovero; Cisquet Hector Roy; Douglas Sheil; Carlos E F Silva; Wilson Roberto Spironello; Renato Valencia; Alex Zvoleff; Jorge Ahumada; Sandy Andelman

doi:10.1890/15-0935

Limited carbon and biodiversity co-benefits for tropical forest mammals and birds

Lydia Beaudrot, Kailin Kroetz, Patricia Alvarez-Loayza, Ieda Amaral, Thomas Breuer, Christine Fletcher, Patrick A. Jansen, David Kenfack, Marcela Guimarães Moreira Lima, Andrew R. Marshall, Emanuel H. Martin, Mireille Ndoundou-Hockemba, Timothy O'Brien, Jean Claude Razafimahaimodison, Hugo Romero-Saltos, Francesco Rovero, Cisquet Hector Roy, Douglas Sheil, Carlos E F Silva, Wilson Roberto SpironelloRenato Valencia, Alex Zvoleff, Jorge Ahumada, Sandy Andelman

Environment and Geography

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

The conservation of tropical forest carbon stocks offers the opportunity to curb climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and simultaneously conserve biodiversity. However, there has been considerable debate about the extent to which carbon stock conservation will provide benefits to biodiversity in part because whether forests that contain high carbon density in their aboveground biomass also contain high animal diversity is unknown. Here, we empirically examined medium to large bodied ground-dwelling mammal and bird (hereafter "wildlife") diversity and carbon stock levels within the tropics using camera trap and vegetation data from a pantropical network of sites. Specifically, we tested whether tropical forests that stored more carbon contained higher wildlife species richness, taxonomic diversity, and trait diversity. We found that carbon stocks were not a significant predictor for any of these three measures of diversity, which suggests that benefits for wildlife diversity will not be maximized unless wildlife diversity is explicitly taken into account; prioritizing carbon stocks alone will not necessarily meet biodiversity conservation goals. We recommend conservation planning that considers both objectives because there is the potential for more wildlife diversity and carbon stock conservation to be achieved for the same total budget if both objectives are pursued in tandem rather than independently. Tropical forests with low elevation variability and low tree density supported significantly higher wildlife diversity. These tropical forest characteristics may provide more affordable proxies of wildlife diversity for future multi-objective conservation planning when fine scale data on wildlife are lacking.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1098-1111
Number of pages	14
Journal	ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS
Volume	26
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1890/15-0935
Publication status	Published - 8 Jun 2016

Keywords

Biodiversity co-benefit
Camera trapping
Carbon stocks
Conservation planning
REDD+
Tropical ecology assessment and monitoring network
Wildlife conservation

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Beaudrot, L., Kroetz, K., Alvarez-Loayza, P., Amaral, I., Breuer, T., Fletcher, C., Jansen, P. A., Kenfack, D., Lima, M. G. M., Marshall, A. R., Martin, E. H., Ndoundou-Hockemba, M., O'Brien, T., Razafimahaimodison, J. C., Romero-Saltos, H., Rovero, F., Roy, C. H., Sheil, D., Silva, C. E. F., ... Andelman, S. (2016). Limited carbon and biodiversity co-benefits for tropical forest mammals and birds. ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS, 26(4), 1098-1111. https://doi.org/10.1890/15-0935

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Beaudrot, L, Kroetz, K, Alvarez-Loayza, P, Amaral, I, Breuer, T, Fletcher, C, Jansen, PA, Kenfack, D, Lima, MGM, Marshall, AR, Martin, EH, Ndoundou-Hockemba, M, O'Brien, T, Razafimahaimodison, JC, Romero-Saltos, H, Rovero, F, Roy, CH, Sheil, D, Silva, CEF, Spironello, WR, Valencia, R, Zvoleff, A, Ahumada, J & Andelman, S 2016, 'Limited carbon and biodiversity co-benefits for tropical forest mammals and birds', ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS, vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 1098-1111. https://doi.org/10.1890/15-0935

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AU - Fletcher, Christine

AU - Jansen, Patrick A.

AU - Kenfack, David

AU - Lima, Marcela Guimarães Moreira

AU - Marshall, Andrew R.

AU - Martin, Emanuel H.

AU - Ndoundou-Hockemba, Mireille

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AU - Razafimahaimodison, Jean Claude

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AU - Rovero, Francesco

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AU - Sheil, Douglas

AU - Silva, Carlos E F

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AU - Valencia, Renato

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Limited carbon and biodiversity co-benefits for tropical forest mammals and birds

Abstract

Keywords

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