Worldwide patterns of wild mammal trade are driven by species ecology, evolutionary relatedness, and socio-political variables: inferences from the TRAFFIC bulletin

Wildlife trade is one of the main drivers of species decline and extinction worldwide. Although many studies have investigated the magnitude and extent of the wildlife trade, little is known about the role that species traits play in the trade of species body parts and trade purposes. Here, we test how species traits, phylogenetic relationships, and socio-political variables determine the purpose of trade, number of body parts, species, and specimens traded. We compiled records of mammal trade from the TRAFFIC bulletin (n = 100 bulletins). We fitted Bayesian generalized linear models (GLMs) to test whether species traits influence the number of body parts, purpose of trade, and number of TRAFFIC bulletins per species. We fitted GLMs to test whether socio-political variables influence the number of trade records, species and specimens traded by country. Products of at least 16,279,031 specimens from 458 mammal species were traded, including 162 threatened species (65 vulnerable, 70 endangered, and 27 critically endangered) and two extinct species. Larger species and species classified as “vulnerable” are more likely to have more parts traded for more uses, and closely related species tend to be traded for similar purposes. In addition, 127 countries were associated with trade, with high-income countries (those with greater human development index) having a greater number of species traded. Our results highlight the importance of species traits and socio-political factors on mammal trades. We emphasize the need for multidisciplinary research to investigate the species loss due to trade based on species traits and socio-political factors.