The effects of hunting on the regeneration of trees in mature floodplain forests in southeastern Peru

Tropical forests and their biological diversity are at immense risk of destruction, and degradation. A major threat is the overhunting of wildlife that preferentially removes vertebrates that perform key functional roles for the maintenance of forest diversity. These animals are seed dispersers, and predators of seeds and seedlings. It is essential to investigate to what extent the removal of key vertebrates from the ecosystem affects plant communities.;I studied vertebrate and plant communities at six localities in mature forests of southwestern Amazonia, Peru. Three sites were located inside Manu National Park and Tambopata National Reserve. The other three sites were hunted forests located nearby three villages, these forests are contiguous with the protected areas. All sites are comparable in floristic and climatic features. These hunted forests are not logged, or influenced by any other anthropogenic disturbance. The aim of this dissertation is to identify the effects of overhunting wildlife on the structure and composition of the early stages of forest regeneration.;In the studied hunted forests, hunters depleted large-bodied animals, especially primates that are dispersers of large seeds (>2cm long), and heavily reduced both medium-bodied primates that disperse medium seeds (≥1.5-2cm long), and peccaries that are predators of seeds.;The results of this dissertation indicate that hunting indirectly alters the structure and composition of plant communities. Seedlings and small juveniles up to 1m height in hunted forests contain fewer species of trees dispersed by medium and large-bodied primates (50% reduction), and higher densities of species dispersed by abiotic factors (∼300% increase), than in forests protected from hunting. The community of small saplings >0.5m tall- < 1 cm diameter also show the altered patterns of regeneration seen in seedling communities at hunted sites. Hunted forests have 55% reduction of species richness and 60% reduction in density of species dispersed by large and medium-bodied primates. In addition, hunted forests have 56% higher richness and 81% higher density of abiotically dispersed species.;I argue that these changes in forest composition are likely to occur worldwide as the escalating wild meat trade throughout tropical forests results in depauperate vertebrate communities, thus precipitating shifts in plant species composition.