Ecological function losses caused by monotonous land use induce crop raiding by wildlife on the island of Yakushima,southern Japan |
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Authors: | Naoki Agetsuma |
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Institution: | (1) Tomakomai Experimental Forest, Field Science Center for Northern Biosphere, Hokkaido University, Takaoka, Tomakomai 053-0035, Japan |
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Abstract: | Mass production is a logical outcome of price competition in a capitalist economy. It has resulted in the need for large-scale
logging and planting of commercial crops. However, such monotonous land use, or monoculture, has damaged various ecological
functions of forests and eroded the beneficial public service provided by forests. In Japan, the most widespread monotonous
land use is associated with coniferous plantations, the expansion of which was encouraged by Forest Agency policies from 1958
that were aimed at increasing wood production. By 1986, half of all forested lands had been transformed into single-species
conifer plantations. These policies may damage the ecological functions of forests: to provide stable habitats for forest
wildlife. In particular, food supplies for wildlife have fluctuated greatly after several decades of logging. Some species
have therefore changed their ecology and begun to explore novel environments proactively in order to adapt to such extreme
fluctuations. Such species have started to use farmlands that neighbor the plantations. In this sense, crop raiding by wildlife
can be regarded as a negative result of monotonous land use due to the loss of ecological functions. Therefore, habitat management
to rehabilitate ecological functions and to reorganize the landscape will be required in order to resolve the problem of crop
raiding by wildlife. This study examines crop raiding by Japanese deer (Cervus nippon) and monkeys (Macaca fuscata) on the island of Yakushima, which typifies crop-raiding situations in Japan. |
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Keywords: | Crop raiding Functional response Land use management Plantation Wildlife ecology |
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