Co-designing zoonotic diseases prevention practices when people depend on wild meat.

In the face of the escalating frequency of diseases emergences originating from wildlife, the development of reliable strategies for controlling zoonotic diseases transmission at the interface between wildlife and human is becoming a global priority. Rural communities whose subsistence is based on hunting for wild meat extraction are natural targets of such interventions, because of their regular contacts with wildlife. To date there have been few attempts at building preventive sanitary strategies taking into account the socioeconomic and institutional constraints in which wild meat systems operate.

Hunting indicators for community-led wildlife management in tropical Africa.

Engaging local communities is pivotal for wildlife conservation beyond protected areas, aligning with the 30 × 30 target of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. We assessed the effectiveness of 33 offtake indicators, derived from hunter declarations, in monitoring the status and extent of degradation of hunted wildlife sourced from camera trap surveys and faunal composition analysis. The rodents:ungulates ratio in offtake and the mean body mass of total offtake emerged as practical and robust indicators of faunal degradation within hunting systems, with significant potential for broader application in similar tropical forest environments.

An experimental game to assess hunter's participation in zoonotic diseases surveillance.

Background: Strengthening the surveillance of zoonotic diseases emergence in the wild meat value chains is a critical component of the prevention of future health crises. Community hunters could act as first-line observers in zoonotic pathogens surveillance systems in wildlife, by reporting early signs of the possible presence of a disease in the game animals they observe and manipulate on a regular basis.

Methods: An experimental game was developed and implemented in a forested area of Gabon, in central Africa.

Empirical selection between least-cost and current-flow designs for establishing wildlife corridors in Gabon.

Corridors are intended to increase species survival by abating landscape fragmentation resulting from the conversion of natural habitats into human-dominated matrices. Conservation scientists often rely on 1 type of corridor model, typically the least-cost model or current-flow model, to construct a linkage design, and their choice is not usually based on theory or empirical evidence. We developed a method to empirically confirm whether corridors produced by these 2 models are used by target species under current landscape conditions.

How many species and under what names? Using DNA barcoding and GenBank data for west Central African amphibian conservation.

Development projects in west Central Africa are proceeding at an unprecedented rate, often with little concern for their effects on biodiversity. In an attempt to better understand potential impacts of a road development project on the anuran amphibian community, we conducted a biodiversity assessment employing multiple methodologies (visual encounter transects, auditory surveys, leaf litter plots and pitfall traps) to inventory species prior to construction of a new road within the buffer zone of Moukalaba-Doudou National Park, Gabon. Because of difficulties in morphological identification and taxonomic uncertainty of amphibian species observed in the area, we integrated a DNA barcoding analysis into the project to improve the overall quality and accuracy of the species inventory.

Evaluating the role of Pleistocene refugia, rivers and environmental variation in the diversification of central African duikers (genera Cephalophus and Philantomba).

Background: This study aims to assess the role that Pleistocene refugia, rivers and local habitat conditions may have played in the evolutionary diversification of three central African duiker species (Cephalophus dorsalis, C. callipygus and Philantomba monticola). Genetic data from geo-referenced feces were collected from a wide range of sites across Central Africa.

Antipoaching standards in onshore hydrocarbon concessions drawn from a Central African case study.

Unsustainable hunting outside protected areas is threatening tropical biodiversity worldwide and requires conservationists to engage increasingly in antipoaching activities. Following the example of ecocertified logging companies, we argue that other extractive industries managing large concessions should engage in antipoaching activities as part of their environmental management plans. Onshore hydrocarbon concessions should also adopt antipoaching protocols as a standard because they represent a biodiversity threat comparable to logging.

Hypothesis-driven and field-validated method to prioritize fragmentation mitigation efforts in road projects.

The active field of connectivity conservation has provided numerous methods to identify wildlife corridors with the aim of reducing the ecological effect of fragmentation. Nevertheless, these methods often rely on untested hypotheses of animal movements, usually fail to generate fine-scale predictions of road crossing sites, and do not allow managers to prioritize crossing sites for implementing road fragmentation mitigation measures. We propose a new method that addresses these limitations.

Distribution of a community of mammals in relation to roads and other human disturbances in Gabon, central Africa.

We present the first community-level study of the associations of both roads and other human disturbances with the distribution of mammals in Gabon (central Africa). Our study site was in an oil concession within a littoral mosaic landscape. We conducted surveys along 199 line transects and installed camera traps on 99 of these transects to document mammal presence and abundance.