Barychka, T;
Purves, DW;
Milner-Gulland, EJ;
Mace, GM;
(2020)
Modelling parameter uncertainty reveals bushmeat yields versus survival trade-offs in heavily-hunted duiker Cephalophus spp.
PLOS ONE
, 15
(9)
, Article e0234595. 10.1371/journal.pone.0234595.
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Abstract
Reliably predicting sustainable exploitation levels for many tropical species subject to hunting remains a difficult task, largely because of the inherent uncertainty associated with estimating parameters related to both population dynamics and hunting pressure. Here, we investigate a modelling approach to support decisions in bushmeat management which explicitly considers parameter uncertainty. We apply the approach to duiker Cephalophus spp., assuming either a constant quota-based, or a constant proportional harvesting, strategy. Within each strategy, we evaluate different hunting levels in terms of both average yield and survival probability, over different time horizons. Under quota-based harvesting, considering uncertainty revealed a trade-off between yield and extinction probability that was not evident when ignoring uncertainty. The highest yield was returned by a quota that implied a 40% extinction risk, whereas limiting extinction risk to 10% reduced yield by 50%-70%. By contrast, under proportional harvesting, there was no trade-off between yield and extinction probability. The maximum proportion returned a yield comparable with the maximum possible under quota-based harvesting, but with extinction risk below 10%. However, proportional harvesting can be harder to implement in practice because it depends on an estimate of population size. In both harvesting approaches, predicted yields were highly right-skewed with median yields differing from mean yields, implying that decision outcomes depend on attitude to risk. The analysis shows how an explicit consideration of all available information, including uncertainty, can, as part of a wider process involving multiple stakeholders, help inform harvesting policies.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Modelling parameter uncertainty reveals bushmeat yields versus survival trade-offs in heavily-hunted duiker Cephalophus spp. |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0234595 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0234595 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2020 Barychka et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
| Keywords: | Sustainable agriculture, Population density, Sustainability science, Species extinction, Africa, Extinction risk, Population dynamics, Population size |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences > Genetics, Evolution and Environment |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10111486 |
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