The overhunting of animals in tropical forests is beneficial to lianas and can also be detrimental to carbon sequestration by trees. This unusual relationship is described by ecologists from Wageningen University (part of Wageningen UR) and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama in the 1 January issue of Science.
According to the researchers, most tropical trees are dependent for seed dispersal on animals of some kind. Overhunting of these animals threatens the dispersal and natural regeneration of countless tree species. That indirectly benefits lianas which are often dispersed by the wind.
Forests containing more lianas absorb less CO2 from the atmosphere. The leaves of lianas displace tree leaves in the canopy, but the thin, flexible stems of lianas absorb relatively little carbon.
With this study the researchers focus attention on the “bushmeat crisis” unfolding in the tropics. Tropical forests are often well protected against logging but seldom against animal poaching. There is a flourishing illegal trade in bushmeat and other wild animal products and a huge market for these products, primarily in Africa and China. As a result of this tropical forests to which humans have been granted access are more and more frequently “emptied.”
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