Implications of the spatial structure of game populations for the sustainability of hunting in the Neotropics.

ANDRÉS J. NOVARO

People in nature: Wildlife conservation in South and Central America.

Columbia University Press

Lugar: New York; Año: 2004; p. 390 - 399

Harvest theory has been built almost entirely on assumptions of uniformly distributed populations. Most natural populations, however, are spatially structured and this structure has profound effects on the dynamics of the populations and thus on their responses to hunting. Harvest theory, therefore, must be revised to incorporate spatial structure, and the resulting models need to account for the spatial heterogeneity of populations and their environments. The spatial heterogeneity of hunted game populations in the Neotropics has begun to be analyzed explicitly only in recent years. This may be due to the lack of comprehensive demographic data on game populations and in particular on the spatial variation of hunting in this region. The importance of spatial heterogeneity of hunting also has been recognized for wildlife populations in other regions where spatial data are scarce, such as African forests and savannas. Spatial heterogeneity has long been suggested, although not incorporated into harvest models, as a relevant factor in the dynamics of game in regions where data are more abundant. In this paper I first review the processes that can structure populations in ways that are relevant to the sustainability of game hunting. Then I discuss the approaches that are being used to account for the spatial structure of game when evaluating hunting sustainability and consider some of their limitations. Finally, I suggest some topics for research, discuss difficulties of identifying game spatial structure, and present a model to incorporate the effects of one type of spatial structure on the population dynamics of game when demographic data are scarce.