Artisanal mining impacts small mammals while chainsaw milling is a more sustainable practice in Ghana
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Artisanal mining impacts small mammals while chainsaw milling is a more sustainable practice in Ghana Eric Adjei Lawer1,2
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Anne-Christine Mupepele1,3
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Alexandra-Maria Klein1
Received: 4 May 2020 / Revised: 11 November 2020 / Accepted: 18 November 2020 Ó The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Logging and mining are widespread in most West African countries and considering their socio-economic importance, little is known about their ecological impacts. In this study, we investigated the effects of chainsaw milling (logging) and artisanal mining on terrestrial small mammal communities in a tropical forest in Ghana. For this, we compared abundance, diversity measures and community composition of small mammals active at the forest floor in logged, mined and undisturbed forest sites. We found that abundance was higher in logged and undisturbed forest sites than in mined sites. Small mammal species richness, Shannon diversity and Pielou’s evenness did not differ significantly among the three forest disturbance categories. Community composition of small mammals varied between mined and undisturbed sites as well as between mined and logged sites, suggesting differential species responses to altered environments. This may be due to the presence of pits in mined forest sites, hence a reduction in exploitable ground habitat structures for shelter, nesting or food. Overall, our results suggest that artisanal mining has strong impacts on community composition of forest floor small mammals in tropical forests while the effect of logging by chainsaw milling activities is minimal, especially when practiced at low intensity. This effect was moderated by elevation and distance to streams that equally shaped small mammal communities. More research on the effects of specific forms of logging and mining activities on small mammals are urgently needed to better protect species in forests impacted by logging and mining. Keywords Atewa forest Forest disturbance Logging Mining
Communicated by Karen E. Hodges. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-02002089-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. & Eric Adjei Lawer [email protected] 1
Nature Conservation and Landscape Ecology, University of Freiburg, Tennenbacherstr. 4, 79106 Freiburg, Germany
2
Biodiversity Conservation and Management, University for Development Studies, Tamale, Ghana
3
Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Center, Frankfurt, Germany
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Biodiversity and Conservation
Introduction Biodiversity in tropical forests is increasingly threatened by forest degradation despite the efforts to curb deforestation (Malhi et al. 2014; Climate Focus 2015). In West Africa, about 14% of the total land area is covered with forests, many of them being biodiversity hotspots (FAO 2003). Forests are threatened by several anthropogenic pressures such as logging and mining (Jones et al. 2018). This has resulted in an annu
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