Abstract
ABSTRACT The common opossum, Didelphis marsupialis thrives near human settlements. Understanding its ecology could help planning management decisions about this species, especially in anthropogenic landscapes. Yet, there are no density estimations for this species throughout its distribution range in Bolivia. We estimated the density of D. marsupialis in a rural agricultural community, where agroforestry plantations and fallows cover most of the land. We counted individuals in line transects and used DISTANCE software to calculate density. We covered a total of 70.21 km in 143 night counts, obtaining 38 records of D. marsupialis. We estimated a density of 0.30 individuals ha-1 (SE = 0.062; range: 0.20 - 0.45 individuals ha-1), with a mean encounter rate of 0.54 individuals km-1. Encounter rate varied between habitats, with mean values of 0.20 in secondary forests and 0.64 in agroforestry plantations. Our density estimate is near the lower range of previously reported values for the common opossum in other countries. We argue that our results may reflect the response to the availability of food resources and predation pressure in agroforestry plantations.
Highlights
The common opossum, Didelphis marsupialis Linnaeus 1798, is a medium-sized nocturnal mammal that occurs from Mexico to northeastern Argentina, as well as Trinidad and the Lesser Antilles, from sea level to about 2000 m (Rocha and Rumiz 2010)
We argue that our results may reflect the response to the availability of food resources and predation pressure in agroforestry plantations
We provide encounter rates for other mammalian species, we do not discuss those in detail because of small sample sizes, but we consider those data of scientific value since they are the only data available for mammals within this region in Bolivia
Summary
The common opossum, Didelphis marsupialis Linnaeus 1798, is a medium-sized nocturnal mammal that occurs from Mexico to northeastern Argentina, as well as Trinidad and the Lesser Antilles, from sea level to about 2000 m (Rocha and Rumiz 2010). It is a common species across its distribution range, and thrives well near human settlements and croplands (Rocha and Rumiz 2010). Despite the common occurrence of D. marsupialis in human-influenced tropical habitats, there are no recently published density estimates of this species in Bolivia
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