Medium and large-sized mammals of a private protected wetland in the Cerrado-Amazon biological corridor, Brazil.

D S Silva,M V Ribeiro,F H Soares

doi:10.1590/1519-6984.243666

Abstract

Brazil is the world's richest country in biodiversity, including mammal species. In the Brazilian Cerrado biome, mammalian diversity is vast, with about 251 species, 32 of them are endemic and 22 listed as threatened species. In this work, we investigated species diversity of medium- and large-sized mammals in the private protected area RPPN Pontal do Jaburu (RPPN-PJ) and its surroundings, which is a flooded area located in an important biological corridor in the Cerrado-Amazon ecotone zone, a priority area for biodiversity conservation in Brazil. We used camera-trapping, active search (night and day), and track survey during dry season (Apr - Aug 2016). We recorded 29 mammal species, being the Carnivora order the most representative with 11 species. Regarding threat status, 35.7% of the recorded species were listed as threatened in Brazil and 32.1% worldwide. We highlight the high relative frequency of threatened species records such as Tapirus terrestris, Panthera onca, Blastocerus dichotomus, Pteronura brasiliensis, Priodontes maximus, and other, as well as the presence of the newly described aquatic mammal species Inia araguaiaensis. We stress the importance of RPPN-PJ and its surroundings for mammal conservation, which include complex habitats (wetlands) located in an important ecotone zone.

Highlights

Brazil is considered the country with the richest biodiversity in the world, being responsible for approximately 14% of the world’s biodiversity (Mittermeier, 1997; Lewinsohn and Prado, 2002) with more than 750 mammal species (Abreu Junior et al, 2020; Quintela et al., 2020)
Even though more than half of the Cerrado has been converted to pastures or other anthropogenic land uses (Klink and Machado, 2005), it still has a high diversity of mammal species with more than 251 recorded, of which 32 are considered endemic (Paglia et al, 2012; ICMBIO, 2018)
The area is located at a confluence between the Crixás and Araguaia rivers, in the municipality of Nova Crixás, Goiás state, within the borders of the “Area de Proteção Ambiental Meandros do Rio Araguaia”, a protected area managed by the Brazilian environmental agency Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade (ICMBio)

Summary

Introduction

Brazil is considered the country with the richest biodiversity in the world, being responsible for approximately 14% of the world’s biodiversity (Mittermeier, 1997; Lewinsohn and Prado, 2002) with more than 750 mammal species (Abreu Junior et al, 2020; Quintela et al., 2020). Due to several threats (e.g., fragmentation, habitat loss, among others), at least 110 species have been categorized into some threat status of extinction risk, according to the Brazilian red list of threatened species (ICMBIO, 2018). The Cerrado is the most biodiversity-rich savannah in the world, and the second-largest Brazilian biome (Klink and Machado, 2005) It is considered one of the world’s hotspots for biodiversity conservations due to its high number of endemic species and increasing anthropogenic pressure (Myers et al, 2000). According to the Brazilian Red List of Threatened Species (ICMBIO, 2018) and the Red List of Threatened Species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN, 2020), at least 41 mammal species are listed as threatened in the Cerrado (Gutiérrez and Marinho-Filho, 2017; ICMBIO, 2018)

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