Conservación o explotación: qué promueve la investigación genética en aves?

Abstract

Birds are a very diverse animal group that is worldwide distributed in a heterogeneous manner. Sometimes the influence of man has been one of the main causes that has generated losses of diversity in birds, both directly (through hunting, overexploitation, etc.) and indirectly by fragmenting and altering habitats where these species live. The objective of this Final Degree work is to analyze how genetics studies related to birds have evolved over time, and particularly in relation to the threatened status of the studied species and its economic interest. Also is has been able to analyze if both characteristics were related to each other. For the development of this project, three of the most relevant digital databases on this field have been consulted. These are: WOS (Web of Science) of the ISI (Institute of Scientific Information) for search the scientific papers, the Red List of the IUCN (International Union for Nature Preservation) and Birdlife International to determine the species’ threatened status and its economic interest. Through this study it is concluded that, over time, there is an exponential increase in the number of published genetic papers on bird species. The undertaken statistical analysis showed how, over time, there was not a significant increase in the proportion of studies based on IUCN endangered species. In the same way, the proportion of studies focusing on species with economic interest remained constant over time. In addition, it has been concluded that both variables ("threat level" and "economic interest") are related. Over all revised papers, the highest proportion was observed in studies on non-endangered species without economic interest, which suggests there are other reasons that promote the realization of genetic studies on bird species. Nevertheless, a confluence between the studies on endangered species with economic interest was also observed, but its proportion is still low