Potential decline in the distribution and food provisioning services of the mopane worm (Gonimbrasia belina) in southern Africa
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The mopane worm (Gonimbrasia belina) is an edible insect distributed across southern Africa. As a culturally important source of food, the mopane worm provides nutrition, livelihoods and improves wellbeing for rural communities across its range. However, this is strong evidence that insect populations are declining worldwide, and climate change is likely to cause many insect species to shift in their distributions. For these reasons, we aimed to model how the ecosystem service benefits of the mopane worm are likely to change in the coming decades. We modelled the distribution of the mopane worm under two contrasting climate change scenarios (RCPs 4.5 and 8.5). Moreover, given that the mopane worm shows strong interactions with other species, particularly trees, we incorporated biotic interactions in our models using a Bayesian network. Our models project significant contraction across the species’ range, with up to 70% decline in habitat by the 2080s. Botswana and Zimbabwe are predicted to be the most severely impacted countries, with almost all habitat in Botswana and Zimbabwe modelled to be lost by the 2080s. Decline of mopane worm habitat would likely have negative implications for the health of people in rural communities due to loss of an important source of protein as well as household income provided by their harvest. Biogeographic shifts therefore have potential to exacerbate food insecurity, socio-economic inequalities, and gender imbalance (women are the main harvesters), with cascading effects that most negatively impact poor rural communities dependent on natural resource
Date Issued
2023-01-19
Date Acceptance
2023-01-19
Citation
Frontiers of Biogeography, 2023, 15 (2), pp.1-15
ISSN
1948-6596
Publisher
International Biogeography Society
Start Page
1
End Page
15
Journal / Book Title
Frontiers of Biogeography
Volume
15
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
© 2023 by the author(s). This work is made available under the terms of a
Creative Commons Attribution License, available at
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Creative Commons Attribution License, available at
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License URL
Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.21425/f5fbg59408
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2023-01-19