Características ecológicas e percepção de caçadores como drivers de caça em ecossistemas pan-neotropicais

Abstract

Hunting for food is an activity historically practiced by human populations in practically all regions of the planet. However, population growth near conserved areas has intensified the pressure on target species. A great effort has been undertaken to understand some aspects related to hunting. Perhaps the most important question that needs to be answered is: “What variables are able to predict hunting pressure on a species?” Most works that investigate hunting patterns are structured on the theoretical scenario of Optimal Foraging Theory (TFO). Despite the great contribution of works in the light of TFO, several evidences in the literature demonstrate that hunting is an activity influenced by numerous factors unrelated to energy exchanges. Flavor preferences, health issues, prestige or leisure are fundamental variables to understand some hunting patterns. Strongly influenced by TFO, the Socioecological Theory of Maximization (TSM) states that human beings select resources, following a logic of reducing costs and maximizing benefits in multiple parameters. Guided by TSM, the objective of this thesis was to try to identify which factors influence the selection of hunted species. We seek to achieve this goal from two approaches. Initially, we carried out a literature review and a large-scale analysis and evaluated how environmental characteristics and ecological aspects of hunted species could enhance the chances of a species being hunted. In a second approach, we interview game consumers in a traditional community and see how cost-effectiveness, personal preferences and the abundance of hunted species influence the chances of a species being hunted. We observed a preference for large species as a general large-scale pattern. However, the prioritization of high biomass species varies according to the trophic level of the hunted species and the ecosystem in which the species occurs. Our results also demonstrate that cost-effectiveness is not necessarily a relevant factor when choosing a target species. In contrast, personal preferences and the availability of an animal are the variables that most explain hunting pressure. Finally, we developed a free list analysis method that aims to identify salient and idiosyncratic items by creating a null scenario with the salience values of items in a cultural domain. Our body of evidence makes clear the need to use more comprehensive study models than OFT in the study of human activities.