Wish you were here: How defaunated is the Atlantic Forest biome of its medium- to large-bodied mammal fauna?

Mammals represent the largest-bodied elements of the world’s surviving megafauna and provide several key ecosystems services, yet their populations are often under steep decline throughout the tropics. Anthropogenic defaunation is one the most important contemporary threats to modern mammal faunas. Although the Atlantic Forest biome of South America shows several clear signs of defaunation, the extent to which this biome has lost its mammal fauna remains poorly understood. Here, we collate and analyze a comprehensive body of secondary data to quantitatively assess the spatial patterns of defaunation of all medium- to large-bodied Atlantic Forest mammals which were then classed by morpho-ecological traits. We used a Defaunation Index, which was scaled-up to the entire biome using kriging interpolation, to examine the integrity of site-specific mammal faunas. We further use environmental and socioeconomic predictors to explain the drivers of defaunation. Our results show high levels of defaunation (>0.5) for most of the Atlantic Forest. Apex predators, other carnivores, large-bodied mammals and large herbivores were among the most defaunated functional groups. Remaining native vegetation cover, forest fragment size, and the largest neighboring forest remnant were the main negative predictors of defaunation. We conclude that medium- to large-bodied Atlantic Forest mammals are under high levels of threat due to historical population losses that continue today. A conservation action plan thus becomes imperative to prevent this biome from becoming an even “emptier forest”, severely compromising patterns of diversity, ecological processes and ecosystem functioning

The historical ecology of the world’s largest tropical country uniquely chronicled by its municipal coat-of-arms symbology

Coats-of-arms representing municipal counties express local patterns of rural economics, natural resource and land use, features of the natural capital, and the cultural heritage of either aborigines or colonists. We reconstruct the subnational economic and political timeline of the world’s largest tropical country using municipal coats-of-arms to reinterpret Brazil’s historical ecology. We assessed all natural resource, biophysical, agricultural, and ethnocultural elements of 5,197 coats-of-arms (93.3%) distributed throughout Brazil. We extracted socioenvironmental co-variables for any municipality to understand and predict the relationships between social inequality, environmental degradation, and the historical ecology symbology. We analyzed data via ecological networks and structural equation models. Our results show that the portfolio of political-administrative symbology in coats-of-arms is an underutilized tool to understand the history of colonization frontiers. Although Brazil is arguably Earth’s most species-rich country, generations of political leaders have historically failed to celebrate this biodiversity, instead prioritizing a symbology depicted by icons of frontier conquest and key natural resources. Brazilian historical ecology reflects the relentless depletion of the natural resource capital while ignoring profound social inequalities. Degradation of natural ecosystems is widespread in Brazilian economy, reflecting a legacy of boom-and-bust rural development that so far has failed to deliver sustainable socioeconomic prosperity

Impending anthropogenic threats and protected area prioritization for jaguars in the Brazilian Amazon

Jaguars (Panthera onca) exert critical top-down control over large vertebrates across the Neotropics. Yet, this iconic species have been declining due to multiple threats, such as habitat loss and hunting, which are rapidly increasing across the New World tropics. Based on geospatial layers, we extracted socio-environmental variables for 447 protected areas across the Brazilian Amazon to identify those that merit short-term high-priority efforts to maximize jaguar persistence. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and comparisons of measures of central tendency. Our results reveal that areas containing the largest jaguar densities and the largest estimated population sizes are precisely among those confronting most anthropogenic threats. Jaguars are threatened in the world’s largest tropical forest biome by deforestation associated with anthropogenic fires, and the subsequent establishment of pastures. By contrasting the highest threats with the highest jaguar population sizes in a bivariate plot, we provide a shortlist of the top-10 protected areas that should be prioritized for immediate jaguar conservation efforts and 74 for short-term action. Many of these are located at the deforestation frontier or in important boundaries with neighboring countries (e.g., Peruvian, Colombian and Venezuelan Amazon). The predicament of a safe future for jaguars can only be ensured if protected areas persist and resist downgrading and downsizing due to both external anthropogenic threats and geopolitical pressures (e.g., infrastructure development and frail law enforcement)

O parque das memórias infinitas: 60 anos de histórias do Parque Nacional São Joaquim

Capítulo do livro: O parque das memórias infinitas: 60 anos de histórias do Parque Nacional São Joaquim / Michel Tadeu R. N. de Omena ; Lauro Eduardo Bacca -- Urubici : Cinco Continentes Editora, 2021. 120 p. : il. color.No PNSJ, a fauna de mamíferos de médio e grande porte (isto é, aqueles com peso adulto acima de 1 kg) compreende mais de 20 espécies (Bogoni, 2018). Essas espécies vão desde pequenos roedores e marsupiais até grandes carnívoros, como o puma (Puma concolor).FAPESC, CNPq e CAPE

Mammals-dung beetle co-decline data

This file contains the data summary, data of dung beetles assemblages and mammalian assemblages embodied into different radial cluster size across the Atlantic Forest of South America

Continental-scale local extinctions in mammal assemblages are synergistically induced by habitat loss and hunting pressure

Understanding local-scale patterns of vertebrate species persistence or extirpation in the Anthropocene is a central challenge in conservation ecology. Based on real-world occurrences of 83 mammal ecospecies (i.e. strict ecological analogues often represented by parapatric congeners) across 1029 surveyed sites within the entire Neotropical realm, we set out to identify and disentangle the role of life-history traits under a phylogenetically controlled design in explaining local extinctions given the two leading threats to these species, namely habitat loss (the inverse of remaining habitat area [i.e. 100 – habitat area]) and hunting represented by a metric that ranged from −1.0 (non-hunted sites) to +1.0 (heavily hunted sites). We also examine the dominant role of body size in either reducing or aggravating local extinctions. We analyzed this large dataset using descriptive statistics, Generalized Linear Mixed Models, Phylogenetic Generalized Least Squares, and Phylogenetic Generalized Linear Mixed Models. Habitat loss was the leading driver of local extinctions affecting 75 % of all mammal species, whereas hunting exerted a coup de grâce effect on 70 % of the species whose local fates were determined by the synergistic interaction between habitat loss and hunting. Our results show that Neotropical sites across landscapes retaining ≤30 % of their original habitat and subjected to heavy levels of hunting pressure (≥0.40) contained only ~35 % of the historical mammal fauna. Even after the millennial timescale that shaped modern biotas, threats to the Neotropical megafauna have never been as severe as in the last five decades. Given the narrowing time window for mitigation action, it becomes imperative to implement conservation plans to effectively prevent or inhibit these leading threats to this vertebrate fauna

Medium- to large-bodied mammal surveys across the Neotropics are heavily biased against the most faunally intact assemblages

Biodiversity inventories provide critical information on the ecology of natural ecosystems and inform conservation planning at local to regional scales. Based on a systematic review, we compiled data on over 1000 mammal inventories conducted throughout the Neotropics – from Mexico to Argentina – to document the status of assemblage-wide field mammalogy in the world’s most biodiverse Tropical realm. We analysed data using descriptive statistics and a confusion matrix to understand the prevalence of species' pseudo-absences, map overall patterns of survey density, and quantify any geographic sampling bias. Based on the 1028 site-specific inventories published between 1983 and 2020, mean species richness of medium- to large-bodied mammals was 11.9 (± 8.8 standard deviation). Local inventories were distributed across elevational gradients, and overall sampling effort and survey techniques employed were extremely variable. The best-sampled regions were the Brazilian Atlantic Forest and Mesoamerica, but we identified nine large assemblage-wide Wallacean shortfalls and a pseudo-absence rate of 11% (± 4% standard deviation); geographic sampling bias was largely related to human population density, regardless of the assemblages’ intactness presumably found in the undersampled wilderness regions of the Neotropics. We document the 40-year legacy of mammal field surveys throughout the Neotropics, where several glaring knowledge shortfalls still persist. This calls for an audacious research agenda for future Neotropical mammal studies, which should target sampling in more remote areas, standardise sampling methodology, and provide high-resolution data that can be used to fill current knowledge shortfalls. To do so, Latin American countries and the wider international community will need to commit greater personnel and financial resources to understanding biodiversity patterns and processes related to the Tropical vertebrate fauna

Human density, development, and roads are the main drivers of carnivore presence in urban areas

The crescent urbanization across the globe has widespread ecological consequences, affecting species distribution, demography and behaviour. In this study we aimed to identify, quantify, map and predict the occurrences of medium- to large-bodied (≥1 kg) mammal carnivorans across urban and peri-urban landscapes throughout Brazil. We use a news-based search to compose a dataset of occurrences across the Brazilian cities. Additionally, we gather various socio-environmental and geophysical variables from these urban areas to identify the drivers of carnivore presence across urban environments. Employing Kernel interpolation, we generate heatmaps to highlight and pinpoint regions in Brazil with the highest concentration of carnivorans species on urban areas. We also employed a Generalized Additive Models (GAM) approach to assess the predictive power of social-environmental and geophysical variables on the occurrence of carnivorans in urban landscapes of Brazil. Our findings pinpoint to an increase of potential human-wildlife conflicts likely given that the urban expansion over natural habitats had a rampant increase in the last decades. Finally, we highlight that our results can serve as a basis to improve urban planning and offer important insights into the intricate interplay of social and geophysical variables that influence the occurrences of carnivorans within urban environments in Brazil

Interacting elevational and latitudinal gradients determine bat diversity and distribution across the Neotropics

New World bats are heavily affected by the biophysical setting shaped by elevation and latitude. This study seeks to understand the patterns of bat species diversity across elevational, latitudinal and vegetation height gradients throughout the Neotropics. Systematically gathered putative and empirical data on bat species distribution across the entire Neotropics were examined using descriptive statistics, spatial interpolation of bat taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity, generalized linear models, generalized linear mixed models and phylogenetic generalized least squares. We uncoupled the effects of elevation, latitude and vegetation height to predict Neotropical bat diversity, showing that dietary level, home range and habitat breadth were the most important ecological traits determining coarse-scale bat distributions. Latitude was largely responsible for sorting the regional species pool, whereas elevation appears to apply an additional local filter to this regional pool wherever tropical mountains are present, thereby shaping the structure of montane assemblages. Bats provide multiple ecosystem services and our results can help pinpoint priority areas for bat research and conservation across all Neotropics, elucidate the thresholds of species distributions, and highlight bat diversity hotspots at multiple scales

The empty forest three decades later: Lessons and prospects

The “Empty Forest” paradigm published three decades ago inspired studies on biodiversity erosion. Evidence to date continues pessimistic regarding the fate of wildlife. This calls for a more proactive approach by several societal actors to realign systems of resource exploitation with the goals of the Convention on Biological Diversity