Date: June 26, 2019
Source: University of Kansas
Growing
up in Liberia during that country's brutal 14-year civil war, Benedictus
Freeman and his family fled into the rainforest, where they survived for years
eating bush meat and foraging. The rainforest provided Freeman sustenance and
protection -- but more than that, the experience ignited a passion in him for
understanding and preserving nature.
"At
that time, I really didn't know how important the forest would become for me --
I saw the forest as a source of resources like food and shelter," said
Freeman, who today is a doctoral student in ecology & evolutionary biology
at the University of Kansas and KU Biodiversity Institute. "But I
developed an interest in nature there, and eventually I started studying
forestry for my undergraduate degree. That actually influenced my decision to
get more interested in nature and conservation."
The
rainforests that once protected Freeman and his family host one of West Africa's
flagship bird species -- the White‐breasted Guineafowl (Agelastes meleagrides).
Now, Freeman is lead author of a new paper in the peer-reviewed journal Avian
Research that projects the geographic distribution of the bird through 2050 as
it shifts habitat due to climate change.
"This
bird is endemic to West Africa, but it's not fully understood -- it's poorly
studied," Freeman said. "Because of this poor history, there's very
little understanding about its range. Our study recharacterizes its
distribution and helps us to understand to what extent it's distributed across
the region. The bird is threatened, and it's of conservation concern. So that's
why it was selected for study."
According
to Freeman, the vulnerable White-breasted Guineafowl, which has appeared on
Liberian postage stamps, serves as an iconic "flagship species,"
conservation of which could preserve habitat of many lesser-known animals at
the same time.
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