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Human Impacts on Mexican Caves

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Mexican Fauna in the Anthropocene

Abstract

This chapter examines Mexican caves and their entire fauna. Caves are important in Mexican science, cultural history, and economy, since pre-Columbian times. They provide access to groundwater and support many species, including bats, which are important to ecosystem services and agriculture. Bats control insects, pollinate plants, and spread essential seeds for natural reforestation. Caves and karst are useful natural resources in México, as attested by thousands of scientific papers and books. Mexico has about 800 obligate cave species (troglobitic species), invertebrates, and cavefishes that are important in scientific research. Some of the cavefishes have become model systems in genetics and biomedical research. México is a major cave and karst country with at least 12,000 known caves, 4000 of which have been mapped. Sistema Huautla, Oaxaca, is the deepest vertical cave in the Americas, and there are many world-class, long, submerged cave systems in Quintana Roo. We report on 64 caves (including three mines), 28 of which were impacted by humans through vandalism, trash, sewage, mining, or bat disturbance; two were gutted of life. We assigned a “risk factor” to each cave, which means the likelihood of losing more species in the cave because of human activity; 1 is a natural cave, 2 had minor degradation, 3 and 4 are increasing levels of damage, 5 is severely impacted, and “gutted” caves now lack life. Risk was based on several factors: known loss of species, reduced bat populations, loss of habitat, level of human visitation, degree of human alteration, and vandalism. High-risk factors should be prioritized for conservation actions. Most documented impacts involved bats. Groundwater pollution is a concern in karst, especially in the Yucatán Peninsula. Many caves have been damaged, but partial restoration of some has begun. Specific recommendations are made for the study, protection, and restricted use of caves.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Patricia Ornelas-García (review, editing), Robert W. Jones (editing), Jean Louis Lacaille Múzquiz (data), Peter Sprouse (data), José Alfredo Hernández-Vázquez (literature), Oscar F. Francke (review, data), Graham Proudlove (data), Jorge A. Vargas-Contreras (data, literature), Adam Haydock (photo), Alejandro Gómez (photo), Sergio Grosjean-Avimerhi (photo), Andy Murray (photo), James R. Reddell (literature), Francis E. Abernethy (photo, deceased), and Robert W. Mitchell (photo, deceased).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Association for Mexican Cave Studies, and Missouri Department of Conservation, retired, Georgetown, TX, USA

    William R. Elliott

  2. Departamento de Ecología y Recursos Naturales, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and Unión Mexicana de Agrupaciones Espeleológicas (UMAE), Mexico City, México

    José G. Palacios-Vargas

  3. Instituto de Ecología, UNAM, Ciudad de México, México

    Rodrigo A. Medellín

  4. Posgrado en Biociencias, Universidad de Sonora, and UMAE, Hermosillo, Sonora, México

    Omar Calva

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  1. William R. Elliott
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  2. José G. Palacios-Vargas
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  3. Rodrigo A. Medellín
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  4. Omar Calva
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to William R. Elliott .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Querétaro, Juriquilla, Mexico

    Robert W. Jones

  2. Colección Nacional de Peces, Instituto de Biologia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad Universitaria, Ciudad de México, Mexico

    C. Patricia Ornelas-García

  3. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, Juriquilla, Querétaro, Mexico

    Rubén Pineda-López

  4. Colección Nacional de Peces, Instituto de Biologia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad Universitaria, Ciudad de México, Mexico

    Fernando Álvarez

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Elliott, W.R., Palacios-Vargas, J.G., Medellín, R.A., Calva, O. (2023). Human Impacts on Mexican Caves. In: Jones, R.W., Ornelas-García, C.P., Pineda-López, R., Álvarez, F. (eds) Mexican Fauna in the Anthropocene. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17277-9_18

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