Land management strategies can increase oil palm plantation use by some terrestrial mammals in Colombia

Lain E Pardo,Michael V Cove,Mason J Campbell,Gopalasamy Reuben Clements,Will Edwards,William F Laurance

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-44288-y

Land management strategies can increase oil palm plantation use by some terrestrial mammals in Colombia

Lain E Pardo, Michael V Cove + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-44288-y

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Abstract

While the conservation role of remaining natural habitats in anthropogenic landscapes is clear, the degree to which agricultural matrices impose limitations to animal use is not well understood, but vital to assess species’ resilience to land use change. Using an occupancy framework, we evaluated how oil palm plantations affect the occurrence and habitat use of terrestrial mammals in the Colombian Llanos. Further, we evaluated the effect of undergrowth vegetation and proximity to forest on habitat use within plantations. Most species exhibited restricted distributions across the study area, especially in oil palm plantations. Habitat type strongly influenced habitat use of four of the 12 more widely distributed species with oil palm negatively affecting species such as capybara and naked-tailed armadillo. The remaining species showed no apparent effect of habitat type, but oil palm and forest use probabilities varied among species. Overall, generalist mesocarnivores, white-tailed deer, and giant anteater were more likely to use oil palm while the remaining species, including ocelot and lesser anteater, showed preferences for forest. Distance to nearest forest had mixed effects on species habitat use, while understory vegetation facilitated the presence of species using oil palm. Our findings suggest that allowing undergrowth vegetation inside plantations and maintaining nearby riparian corridors would increase the likelihood of terrestrial mammals’ occurrence within oil palm landscapes.

Highlights

Agricultural expansion is one of the major drivers of global habitat fragmentation and habitat loss[1,2]
We found that the mammal community in the oil palm producing region of the Llanos in Colombia is composed mostly of generalist species, with restricted distributions and very low detection probabilities
While the giant anteater is categorized as Vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature–IUCN46, we found they are widely distributed throughout both oil palm plantations and forest habitats

Summary

Introduction

Agricultural expansion is one of the major drivers of global habitat fragmentation and habitat loss[1,2]. The lack of mammal studies (especially camera trapping) is evident in the Llanos and Amazon regions[25] despite the Llanos region containing ~68% of the Colombian mammal diversity (including Chiroptera)[26] This region has become the most attractive area for implementation of agribusiness development (such as oil palm) in Colombia[18,27]. Investigations into the potential impacts of oil palm production on Colombian fauna have recently increased[32,34,35,36,37], there is still a paucity of information evaluating mammal species responses to oil palm plantations This information is important, since the capacity of protected areas to function as a mechanism for biodiversity conservation in the long-term is limited, given the increasing rate of degradation occurring in these areas[38,39], and the surrounding landscapes[40,41]

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