Hi everyone, I am working as part of the REACT (RElating Abundance and Composition to Threat) project, a collaboration between Imperial College and the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre, funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council. This project aims to collect records of the abundance of species, and the composition and diversity of communities in order to model, at a global scale, the local response of biodiversity to human threats. My particular interest is in the bushmeat trade, especially as it is a significant yet underappreciated threat to wildlife populations, particularly in the tropics. With most authors suggesting that it is now a greater threat to wildlife (particularly ungulates and primates) than deforestation, I feel that including it in the model is imperative.
The data needs to be raw abundance data and be collected post 2000. There also needs to be some corresponding measure of hunting intensity. If anyone has or knows of anyone who has data like this and would be willing to contribute to it I would be very grateful! At the end of the project we intend to make the data publicly available through the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO-BON), but all requests for confidentiality will be respected, either with regards to the data or to the precise spatial coordinates. All data contributions will be appropriately acknowledged in all publications and other outputs. In addition, we intend to publish an open-access paper describing the database, on which all data providers will be co-authors. For more information, or any queries etc please contact me on either [email protected] or [email protected]. Cheers! Luci
