Snapshot of the Atlantic Forest canopy: surveying arboreal mammals in a biodiversity hotspot

The Atlantic Forest of South America supports a rich terrestrial biodiversity but has been reduced to only a small extent of its original forest cover. It hosts a large number of endemic mammalian species but our knowledge of arboreal mammal ecology and conservation has been limited because of the challenges of observing arboreal species from ground level. Camera trapping has proven to be an effective tool in terrestrial mammal monitoring but the technique has rarely been used for arboreal species. For the first time in the Atlantic Forest, we obtained data on the arboreal mammal community using arboreal camera trapping, focusing on Caparaó National Park, Brazil. We placed 24 infrared camera traps in the forest canopy in seven areas within the Park, operating them continuously during January 2017–June 2019. During this period the camera traps accumulated 4,736 camera-days of footage and generated a total of 2,256 photographs and 30-s videos of vertebrates. The arboreal camera traps were able to detect arboreal mammals of a range of body sizes. The mammal assemblage comprised 15 identifiable species, including the Critically Endangered northern muriqui Brachyteles hypoxanthus and buffy-headed marmoset Callithrix flaviceps as well as other rare, nocturnal and inconspicuous species. We confirmed for the first time the occurrence of the thin-spined porcupine Chaetomys subspinosus in the Park. Species richness varied across survey areas and forest types. Our findings demonstrate the potential of arboreal camera trapping to inform conservation strategies

Mammal responses to global changes in human activity vary by trophic group and landscape

Wildlife must adapt to human presence to survive in the Anthropocene, so it is critical to understand species responses to humans in different contexts. We used camera trapping as a lens to view mammal responses to changes in human activity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Across 163 species sampled in 102 projects around the world, changes in the amount and timing of animal activity varied widely. Under higher human activity, mammals were less active in undeveloped areas but unexpectedly more active in developed areas while exhibiting greater nocturnality. Carnivores were most sensitive, showing the strongest decreases in activity and greatest increases in nocturnality. Wildlife managers must consider how habituation and uneven sensitivity across species may cause fundamental differences in human–wildlife interactions along gradients of human influence.Peer reviewe

Assessing the potential of environmental DNA metabarcoding for monitoring Neotropical mammals: a case study in the Amazon and Atlantic Forest, Brazil

The application of environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding as a biomonitoring tool has greatly increased, but studies have focused on temperate aquatic macro-organisms. We apply eDNA metabarcoding to detecting the mammalian community in two high-biodiversity regions of Brazil: the Amazon and Atlantic Forests. We identified Critically Endangered and Endangered mammalian species and found overlap with species identified via camera trapping. We highlight the potential for using eDNA monitoring for mammals in biodiverse regions and identify challenges: we need a better understanding of the ecology of eDNA within variable environments and more appropriate reference sequences for species identification in these anthropogenically impacted biomes. © 2020 The Mammal Society and John Wiley & Sons Lt

NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES: a data set on carnivore distribution in the Neotropics

Mammalian carnivores are considered a key group in maintaining ecological health and can indicate potential ecological integrity in landscapes where they occur. Carnivores also hold high conservation value and their habitat requirements can guide management and conservation plans. The order Carnivora has 84 species from 8 families in the Neotropical region: Canidae; Felidae; Mephitidae; Mustelidae; Otariidae; Phocidae; Procyonidae; and Ursidae. Herein, we include published and unpublished data on native terrestrial Neotropical carnivores (Canidae; Felidae; Mephitidae; Mustelidae; Procyonidae; and Ursidae). NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES is a publicly available data set that includes 99,605 data entries from 35,511 unique georeferenced coordinates. Detection/non-detection and quantitative data were obtained from 1818 to 2018 by researchers, governmental agencies, non-governmental organizations, and private consultants. Data were collected using several methods including camera trapping, museum collections, roadkill, line transect, and opportunistic records. Literature (peer-reviewed and grey literature) from Portuguese, Spanish and English were incorporated in this compilation. Most of the data set consists of detection data entries (n = 79,343; 79.7%) but also includes non-detection data (n = 20,262; 20.3%). Of those, 43.3% also include count data (n = 43,151). The information available in NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES will contribute to macroecological, ecological, and conservation questions in multiple spatio-temporal perspectives. As carnivores play key roles in trophic interactions, a better understanding of their distribution and habitat requirements are essential to establish conservation management plans and safeguard the future ecological health of Neotropical ecosystems. Our data paper, combined with other large-scale data sets, has great potential to clarify species distribution and related ecological processes within the Neotropics. There are no copyright restrictions and no restriction for using data from this data paper, as long as the data paper is cited as the source of the information used. We also request that users inform us of how they intend to use the data

NEOTROPICAL ALIEN MAMMALS: a data set of occurrence and abundance of alien mammals in the Neotropics

Biological invasion is one of the main threats to native biodiversity. For a species to become invasive, it must be voluntarily or involuntarily introduced by humans into a nonnative habitat. Mammals were among first taxa to be introduced worldwide for game, meat, and labor, yet the number of species introduced in the Neotropics remains unknown. In this data set, we make available occurrence and abundance data on mammal species that (1) transposed a geographical barrier and (2) were voluntarily or involuntarily introduced by humans into the Neotropics. Our data set is composed of 73,738 historical and current georeferenced records on alien mammal species of which around 96% correspond to occurrence data on 77 species belonging to eight orders and 26 families. Data cover 26 continental countries in the Neotropics, ranging from Mexico and its frontier regions (southern Florida and coastal-central Florida in the southeast United States) to Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, and Uruguay, and the 13 countries of Caribbean islands. Our data set also includes neotropical species (e.g., Callithrix sp., Myocastor coypus, Nasua nasua) considered alien in particular areas of Neotropics. The most numerous species in terms of records are from Bos sp. (n = 37,782), Sus scrofa (n = 6,730), and Canis familiaris (n = 10,084); 17 species were represented by only one record (e.g., Syncerus caffer, Cervus timorensis, Cervus unicolor, Canis latrans). Primates have the highest number of species in the data set (n = 20 species), partly because of uncertainties regarding taxonomic identification of the genera Callithrix, which includes the species Callithrix aurita, Callithrix flaviceps, Callithrix geoffroyi, Callithrix jacchus, Callithrix kuhlii, Callithrix penicillata, and their hybrids. This unique data set will be a valuable source of information on invasion risk assessments, biodiversity redistribution and conservation-related research. There are no copyright restrictions. Please cite this data paper when using the data in publications. We also request that researchers and teachers inform us on how they are using the data