Jackals as cleaners : ecosystem services provided by a mesocarnivore in human-dominated landscapes

Ćirović, Duško (author), Penezić, Aleksandra (author), Krofel, Miha (author)

Ecosystem services are receiving increasing attention among researchers and managers, due to emerging recognition of their global extent and contribution towards human welfare. Obligatory scavengers have been identified as important providers of these services, namely waste management, but their populations are declining worldwide and mesocarnivores are taking on the role of dominant scavengers in many regions. However, mesocarnivores are rarely appreciated for their services of waste removal, and are mostly cited in negative contexts in the literature. Here we explored the widely neglected potential of mesocarnivores as providers of ecosystem services. We used the golden jackal (Canis aureus) as a model species and evaluated its provision of ecosystem services in a developing country in the Balkans, where waste management creates numerous challenges. Based on contents of 606 jackal stomachs, food intake and population size, we estimate that in Serbia jackal population annually removes >3 700 tonnes of animal waste and 13.2 million crop pest rodents. We estimate the monetary value of animal waste removal at >0.5 million € per year. We scaled this result up to evaluate ecosystem services at the continental-scale, and these results indicate that jackals remove substantial amounts of discarded animal waste (> 13 000 tonnes) as well as potential crop pests (> 158 million crop pest rodents) across human-dominated landscapes of Europe. These results are the first to demonstrate the value of ecosystem services provided by mesocarnivores as facultative scavengers, and show that they are of great value for local communities in the modern world. We emphasize the importance of recognizing ecosystem services provided by species with predominantly negative public images, in consideration of their conservation.

• Language: English
• Keywords: waste management, anthropogenic food subsidies, scavenging, golden jackal, Canis aureus, Serbia
• Work type: Not categorized
• Typology: 1.03 - Other scientific articles
• Organization: BF - Biotechnical Faculty
• Number of pages: Str. 51-55
• Numbering: #Vol. #199
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-97219
• UDC: 630*15
• ISSN on article: 0006-3207
• DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2016.04.027
• COBISS.SI-ID: 4388006
• Publication date in RUL: 23.10.2017

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Biological Conservation
• Shortened title: Biol. Conserv.
• Publisher: Applied Science Publishers
• ISSN: 0006-3207
• COBISS.SI-ID: 26719232

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.
• Licensing start date: 23.10.2017

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: šakal, zlati šakal, Canis aureus, ekosistemske storitve, plenilci, mrhovinarji, mrhovinarstvo, plenjenje, prehrana, Srbija

Projects

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: P4-0059
• Name: Gozd, gozdarstvo in obnovljivi gozdni viri