Dataset Information

Urban foraging: Land management policy, perspectives, and potential.

ABSTRACT: Gathering of uncultivated food from green spaces, also known as foraging, is observed in urban areas across the world, but the literature focuses predominantly on the global north. Our study examines the existing urban land management structure and its approach to urban foraging in the eastern coastal region of South Africa. Through interviews with municipal officials in nine cities, we identified different stakeholders and their roles in urban green space management. We then used network analysis to represent interactions and influence of these stakeholders, and environmental worldviews to determine organisational and perceptual barriers to and enablers of foraging in urban green spaces. The policy on urban green space management, as well as land managers themselves are amenable to the concept of foraging in public spaces. Lack of knowledge on wild indigenous species and sustainable offtake, ambiguous, coarse, or lacking policy, and normative views of pristine nature may hinder foraging. We recommend pathways for policy and stakeholder partnerships to incorporate sustainable foraging in their biodiversity conservation and land stewardship strategies.

SUBMITTER: Sardeshpande M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7138303 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Urban foraging: Land management policy, perspectives, and potential.

Sardeshpande Mallika M Shackleton Charlie C

PloS one 20200407 4

Gathering of uncultivated food from green spaces, also known as foraging, is observed in urban areas across the world, but the literature focuses predominantly on the global north. Our study examines the existing urban land management structure and its approach to urban foraging in the eastern coastal region of South Africa. Through interviews with municipal officials in nine cities, we identified different stakeholders and their roles in urban green space management. We then used network analys ...[more]

PMID: 32255778

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Project description:In Latin America, the common vampire bat Desmodus rotundus is the primary reservoir of rabies, a zoonotic virus that kills thousands of livestock annually and causes sporadic and lethal human rabies outbreaks. The proliferation of livestock provides an abundant food resource for this obligate blood-feeding species that could alter its foraging behaviour and rabies transmission, but poor understanding of the dietary plasticity of vampire bats limits understanding of how livestock influences rabies risk.We analysed individual- and population-level foraging behaviour by applying ?13C and ?15N stable isotope analysis to hair samples from 183 vampire bats captured from nine colonies in Peru. We also assessed the isotopic distributions of realized prey by analysing blood meals extracted from engorged bats and samples collected from potential prey species. In two adjacent but contrasting areas of the Amazon with scarce and abundant livestock, we used questionnaires to evaluate the incidence of feeding on humans.Population-level isotopic signatures suggested substantial among-site variation in feeding behaviour, including reliance on livestock in some colonies and feeding on combinations of domestic and wild prey in others. Isotopic heterogeneity within bat colonies was among the largest recorded in vertebrate populations, indicating that individuals consistently fed on distinct prey resources and across distinct trophic levels. In some sites, isotopic values of realized prey spanned broad ranges, suggesting that bats with intermediate isotopic values could plausibly be dietary specialists rather than generalists.Bayesian estimates of isotopic niche width varied up to ninefold among colonies and were maximized where wildlife and livestock were present at low levels, but declined with greater availability of livestock. In the Amazon, the absence of livestock was associated with feeding on humans and wildlife. Policy implications. We provide the first insights into the foraging behaviour of vampire bats in habitats with common depredation on humans and show how vampire bat foraging may respond to land-use change. Our results demonstrate risks of rabies transmission from bats to other wildlife and are consistent with the hypothesis that introducing livestock might reduce the burden of human rabies in high-risk communities.

Dataset Information

Urban foraging: Land management policy, perspectives, and potential.

Publications

Urban foraging: Land management policy, perspectives, and potential.

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