Overexploitation and trade is one of the tropical birds decline and extinction main causes. In fact, hunting pressure, the destruction and fragmentation of habitats, pollution and overexploitation are currently causing a serious decrease in the number of species that inhabit the tropics.
Ana Benítez López is an ecologist from Córdoba who currently works as a Ramón y Cajal researcher in the Department of Biogeography and Global Change at the National Museum of Natural Sciences. Ana has spent years studying the effect of anthropogenic factors that can drive species to extinction as well as the dangers associated with hunting wildlife in Latin America, Africa or Asia. In her presentation, Ana will talk about the current threat situation that faces the tropical bird community, with specific data on its abundance reduction, the main factors behind its decline, and the tropical bird trade scope throughout of the tree of life.
In addition, through her conference we will briefly travel to the Brazilian Amazon to identify the fundamental role that birds play as seed dispersers. This is a very important function in all environments, and especially in the tropics. Through the wild species extraction, the ecosystem loses the ability to move nutrients and seeds over long distances, and it completely affects the essential processes needed for the correct functioning of nature.
