Abstract
Insects are facing severe threats of extinction. Long-term data needed to develop effective conservation strategies are not yet available for precisely those areas where biodiversity peaks and negative impacts on species are particularly strong, such as Neotropical forests. One strategy to develop long-term monitoring programmes worldwide has focused on training local people as ‘parabiologists’. Although this model has been very successful, it requires significant, constant funding to cover wages. Here, we implemented a novel approach to address this logistical challenge and simultaneously achieve other beneficial outcomes. Based in Yasuní National Park, one of the world's most diverse protected areas, we started a monitoring scheme where park rangers hired by Ecuador's Ministry of the Environment implemented monitoring, after completing a capacity-building programme. We describe this scheme and evaluate its performance in terms of the biological data gathered. Park rangers were able to identify sampled butterflies to species with a high degree of accuracy (85%), a key attribute for participatory monitoring programmes to be successful. The data gathered by park rangers resulted in commonly studied patterns of spatial and temporal variation that did not differ significantly from a comparable researcher dataset in this butterfly community. Our approach increases the likelihood of sustaining monitoring in the long-term by reducing expenses such as lodging and wages. Furthermore, it also empowers local people, offers opportunities for public institutions to accomplish their environmental goals, and provides the potential for expansion to other highly threatened and important areas for biodiversity conservation.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 416-428 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | Insect Conservation and Diversity |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2 Feb 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2022 Royal Entomological Society.
Funding
Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Grant/Award Number: QINV0171‐IINV529010100; US National Science Foundation, Grant/Award Number: DEB‐1342705 Funding information The authors deeply thank all the park rangers who conducted field work and contributed data to this project: G. Barahona, S. Campos, J. Cuenca, M. Díaz, L. Gallegos, J. Grefa, E. López, P. Moreira, P. Murillo, and J. Nenquimo. The authors are also extremely grateful to the directors and staff of Parque Nacional Yasuní for their enthusiasm and continuing support for this project, in particular to Luis Tonato and Marcelo Díaz. The authors thank the Ministerio del Ambiente, Ecuador, for providing permits for field work (MAE-DNB-CM 2016-0045, 006-19 IC-FL-FAU-DNB/MA, 011-2018-IC-FAU-DNB/MA). The authors specially thank Renato Valencia, principal researcher of the 50 ha ‘Forest Dynamics Plot’ in PNY, for allowing us to develop this study there. The authors thank Erika Páez, Nathalia Artieda, Sebastián Mena and Karina Torres, researchers who supported park rangers during the first monitoring events. The authors also thank Sebastián Mena and Jason Hall for serving as instructors at a pilot training event at PNY's Pindo station in 2016, and the Waorani women who served as field assistants on several occasions at the beginning of the project. The authors are very grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their comments which greatly improved our manuscript, and the staff of Yasuní Scientific Station, especially David Lasso and Carlos Padilla, for their logistical support in obtaining bait for the monitoring and general support in many other areas. Funding to support this research was provided by Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador (PUCE- QINV0171-IINV529010100), with contributions from the US National Science Foundation (DEB-1342705) and the University of Florida, and the authors also acknowledge the support of the Florida Museum of Natural History and the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity, Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INABIO) and Museo QCAZ de Invertebrados (PUCE). The authors deeply thank all the park rangers who conducted field work and contributed data to this project: G. Barahona, S. Campos, J. Cuenca, M. Díaz, L. Gallegos, J. Grefa, E. López, P. Moreira, P. Murillo, and J. Nenquimo. The authors are also extremely grateful to the directors and staff of Parque Nacional Yasuní for their enthusiasm and continuing support for this project, in particular to Luis Tonato and Marcelo Díaz. The authors thank the Ministerio del Ambiente, Ecuador, for providing permits for field work (MAE‐DNB‐CM 2016‐0045, 006‐19 IC‐FL‐FAU‐DNB/MA, 011‐2018‐IC‐FAU‐DNB/MA). The authors specially thank Renato Valencia, principal researcher of the 50 ha ‘Forest Dynamics Plot’ in PNY, for allowing us to develop this study there. The authors thank Erika Páez, Nathalia Artieda, Sebastián Mena and Karina Torres, researchers who supported park rangers during the first monitoring events. The authors also thank Sebastián Mena and Jason Hall for serving as instructors at a pilot training event at PNY's Pindo station in 2016, and the Waorani women who served as field assistants on several occasions at the beginning of the project. The authors are very grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their comments which greatly improved our manuscript, and the staff of Yasuní Scientific Station, especially David Lasso and Carlos Padilla, for their logistical support in obtaining bait for the monitoring and general support in many other areas. Funding to support this research was provided by Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador (PUCE‐ QINV0171‐IINV529010100), with contributions from the US National Science Foundation (DEB‐1342705) and the University of Florida, and the authors also acknowledge the support of the Florida Museum of Natural History and the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity, Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INABIO) and Museo QCAZ de Invertebrados (PUCE). We here demonstrated a novel approach to monitoring butterflies, implemented by staff from a national protected area system who had no prior expertise in butterfly research, which has the potential to provide a solution to obtaining long‐term data on tropical butterfly population trends. The incorporation of parabiologists in biodiversity monitoring in tropical ecosystems is not new (Basset et al., 2000 , 2004 ; Hurtado & Clark, 2011 ; Janzen, 1991 , 2004 ; Santos et al., 2016 ; Schmiedel et al., 2016 ; Van Swaay et al., 2015 ), and such an approach has proved to provide reliable data (Basset et al., 2000 ; Janzen & Hallwachs, 2011 ). However, long‐term sustainability remains a challenge because of the difficulties in sustaining grant funding for long periods of time (Janzen, 2004 ; Schmeller et al., 2017 ), even when parabiologists are involved, as previous programmes have discovered (Schmiedel et al., 2016 ). As an alternative, our approach capitalises on the existing presence in the field of local park rangers employed by the Ecuadorian Ministerio del Ambiente (Ministry of Environment, MAE). So far this partnership has successfully maintained a butterfly monitoring programme for 3 years, with minimal direct costs, because the regular costs of transport, lodging and wages of the parabiologists are already allocated by their employer institution (MAE), while the wages and work of the scientific support staff are covered by their respective academic institutions. Through the agreement with the MAE, the time that park rangers allocate to butterfly monitoring (5 full working days every 2 months) becomes part of their job description, and therefore the costs that an otherwise independent monitoring programme would incur are absorbed by the regular park management operation. In fact, the first 2 years of monitoring reported in this article (2015–2017), were only managed by researchers – funded through an NSF grant (USA) – and cost an average of USD 869 per sampling event (USD 260 in transport to and from the monitoring site, USD 224 in field station fees, and USD 385 in wages for the leading biologist and her/his field assistant). If this average cost per monitoring event is multiplied by the six events carried out every year, it implies an average saving of USD 5214 per monitoring year; only at this field site. If we were to scale‐up – as is desirable – the monitoring programme to other sites within the same national park and to other similarly inaccessible protected areas, the overall cost of the monitoring programme would quickly become unsustainable.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad | |
| Ministerio del Ambiente | 006-19 IC-FL-FAU-DNB/MA, MAE-DNB-CM 2016-0045, 011-2018-IC-FAU-DNB/MA |
| National Science Foundation | DEB‐1342705 |
| University of Florida | |
| Florida Museum of Natural History | |
| Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador |
Keywords
- biodiversity monitoring
- biological indicators
- parabiologists
- participatory monitoring programmes
