Diversity of Wild Mammals in a Megalopolis: Mexico City, Mexico

Abstract

Mexico City, the capital of Mexico, is located on the Southern-Central part of the country and it is one of the most important megalopolis in the world. This city lies within the Distrito Federal, bordering with the state of Mexico on the north, east and west and with the state of Morelos on the south. It is one of the 32 political divisions of Mexico and the smallest one, comprising an area of 1,485 km2 (Fig. 1). Mexico City belongs to the Basin of Mexico together with parts of the states of Hidalgo, Puebla, Tlaxcala and Mexico. Mexico City and the rest of the metropolitan area is one of the largest cities in the world with more than 30 million inhabitants (INEGI, 2010), just behind Tokyo, Japan and forward New York and the Philadelphia area, USA (34.3 and 22 respectely; Brinkhoff, 2011). The rapid growth of its population has led to the loss of original habitats and to the transformation of natural sites and therefore and in spite of being considered as a region with high levels of biodiversity to the local extinction of wildlife species. Mammals are one of the most important components of biodiversity, particularly in Mexico. Several inventories and studies have reported the occurrence of mammals in the Valley of Mexico in the past years. Some of the most remarkable contributions to this subject are by far those of Villa-R (1952) and Hall (1981). However, important mammalian information for the Valley of Mexico was also gathered by Ceballos & Galindo (1984) and Villa & Cervantes (2003). Moreover, the paper published by Ramirez-Pulido et al. (1986) more than a quarter of a century ago about mammals of the Distrito Federal contributed important information to the knowledge of the species richness of local mammals species. In addition, several papers reports on mammals collected in diverse areas of the Distrito Federal (Lopez-Forment, 1989; Sanchez et al., 1989; Negrete, 1991; Negrete & Soberon, 1994; Castro-Campillo, 1992; Chavez & Ceballos, 1992, 1994; Chavez, 1993 a, b; Alvarez et al., 1994; Monroy et al., 1999; CONANP-SEMARNAT, 2006; Navarro, et al., 2007; Barcenas & Medellin, 2007; Gomez-Jimenez, 2009). Research papers referriing especially to particular taxonomic groups (Villa-R, 1966; Alvarez & Ramirez-Pulido, 1972; Polaco et al., 2002; Carraway, 2007) also mentioned the presence of mammals in Mexico City and confirmed the outstanding contribution of mammals to the biodiversity of the Distrito Federal. Despite this large number of reports, the available information on mammals of Mexico City was scattered and incomplete. Therefore, in order to properly documents the species