Abstract Detail

Poster Session

Kennedy, Zachary [1], Volk, Thomas [1].

Mycological Applications to Combat Deforestation in the Amazon.

The Amazon Rainforest contributes greatly to our planet’s health and biodiversity, containing at least 10% of total species, and combined with all forests in the Americas, sequesters and estimated 1.07 Petagrams carbon/year.  Yet global economic influences have mediated deforestation and fragmentation at an alarming rate. There is a pressing need to mitigate deforestation by developing economic influences that preserve and protect the rainforest rather than destroy it.
Conservation efforts cannot be the sole strategy for rainforest preservation as conservation policies are often negated by policies promoting economic expansion. Enforcement of conservation efforts is often hampered by ineffective policing and corruption. Conservation policies must be coordinated with economic influences that provide practical and realistic incentive for rainforest preservation.
Tourism focused on nature and wildlife, dubbed ecotourism, has been previously lauded as an economic influence with potential to create incentive for rainforest preservation. The effect on rainforest preservation by ecotourism remain controversial. Ecotourism is also subject to fluctuations, making reliance on ecotourism risky for communities.
The focus of this educational poster will be to highlight possible mycological applications that can provide key economic incentives for preserving and protecting the rainforest. The first set of applications are aimed at increasing farmland longevity by introducing mycological-mediated agricultural techniques. The second set of applications are aimed at developing a biomedical research sector that sells the rights to research novel compounds from endogenous fungi.
Increasing farmland longevity will decrease deforestation pressure by lengthening productivity of current farmland. Rainforest soil is quite poor, and farmers must clear new land every couple of years to ensure sufficient crop production. This poster presents two mycological applications which could be applied to increase farmland longevity. They are: introduction of a supplemental mushroom crop as a means to provide additional income and inoculation/management of mutualistic mycorrhizae as a means to increase crop yield.
Development of a biomedical research industry will be based on licensing rights to research novel chemical compounds isolated and derived from fungi. Profits can be generated by selling patent rights for chemical production, selling cataloged libraries of compounds for further testing, or contracting to provide novel samples of fungi to research institutions. While these applications all create incentive to preserve biodiversity, they vary in investment and infrastructure costs.
For these strategies to be successful, they must be profitable, implementable, employ sufficient numbers, and produce long term growth. Further research is needed to determine feasibility of these applications. 

1 - University of Wisconsin La Crosse, Biology, 1725 State St, apt 7, La Crosse, WI, 54601, United States

Keywords:
Conservation
Mycological Applications
Deforestation
Amazon.

Presentation Type: Offered Paper - Poster
Session: P4
Location: Lincoln Room/Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center
Date: Tuesday, June 10th, 2014
Time: 8:30 PM
Number: P4009
Abstract ID:100
Candidate for Awards:None