Aylin Alegre Barroso

Cave and Karst Fauna Conservation in the Protected Area Yara-Majayara, Baracoa, Cuba. Strengthening of Research and Environmental Education

Jimeneziella decui a troglobitic endangered arachnid.

Cave fauna laboratories at schools.

Farmers workshop.

Town/RegionCountryCategoriesDate
BaracoaCubaCaves, Central and Latin America, Education, People19 May 2011

About 70 % of Cuba surface area is constituted by karst, which has given place to a great quantity of caves with the most diverse fauna in the West Indian islands. However Cuban cave fauna has received scarce efforts for its study and conservation. The protected area Yara-Majayara possesses a karstic landscape as fewest in Cuba. Three levels of marine terraces, covering a surface area of 17, 8 km², constitute the habitat for numerously Cuban endemic species, but is also the place for the establishment of several people communities and important archaeological sites. Consequently, this is a scenario where the speleofauna is interacting with human communities, a growing tourism and a prominent attention to native sites.

The Second RSG project consists in a reinforcement of the previous project and expects to continue increasing the cave and karst associated fauna knowledge to improve the management plan of the protected area. The principal focus is on the caves themselves and the three elements that contribute to their ecosystem dynamics: bats, whose guano is clearly the critical source of energy and nutrients for many caves; troglobitic invertebrates which have an elevate risk of extinction, otherwise feed on guano and on each other; and epigean invertebrates found both outside caves and inside them, resulting a significant source of energy too. Nevertheless the project also includes enhancing conservation of four at-risk endemic species that often or always utilize caves or karst (the jutía conga, a large rodent and the Cuban iguana both hunted species, plus the Cuban boa, killed out of ignorance and fear and the national snail Polymita picta, affected by the burn of vegetation, a local practice to facilitate the cultivation of the lands).

Particular efforts will be also directed to the mitigation of the extraction of bat guano, one of the conservation problem previously detected. The work will involve the same communities of the previous project and some other that also belong to the protected area, on the other hand we will study three new caves, in addition to the four preceding investigated, achieving a major reach in the entire protected area.

Read about Aylin's previous work http://www.ruffordsmallgrants.org/rsg/projects/aylin_alegre_barroso or for more information contact aylinalegre@gmail.com

Project Update: December 2011

The project started on April 2011. All planned field trips were conducted. Until now, the species Jimeneziella decui wasn’t found in Majana cave, the type locality; neither was it collected outside caves. This could confirm their troglobite condition also supported by their troglobitic morphological characters. In the zoological collections we didn’t find other epygean records of this species, instead were found several specimens of Decuella cubaorientalis, inhabiting epygean ecosystems from other localities of Guantanamo, demonstrating that it is not troglobitic as previously recorded. The extraction of guano embraces other caves than La Majana, so we are working hard on this problem. In the farmers’ workshop we introduced the compost as an alternative to bat guano extraction and discussed how to obtain compost and their benefits. Also we treated the hunt of the endemic species Jutia conga, Cuban boa and Cuban iguana and were determinate the needs and rules to construct jutias’ captive breeding sites for human sustainable consumption. We continued the environmental education, including new schools. The training to technicians in collects and monitoring of cave fauna was completed.


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