Survey of medium-sized and large mammals in semideciduous Atlantic Forest patches near Alfenas, southern Minas Gerais, Brazil

Ana Raíssa Cunha Costa,Rogério Grassetto Teixeira Da Cunha,Marcelo Passamani

doi:10.15560/15.1.209

Abstract

We surveyed, with the aid of camera traps, medium-sized and large terrestrial mammals in 8 patches of semideciduous Atlantic Forest near the city of Alfenas, Minas Gerais, Brazil. We recorded species occurrence using 2 camera traps per fragment, which were simultaneously active for 2 months each. We recorded 16 species, plus a species of armadillo that we were unable to identify to genus. The rarefaction curve tended to stabilize, evidencing the efficacy of our methods. The species richness was similar or higher to other surveys carried out in remnants of seasonal semideciduous Atlantic Forest or transitional areas. However, such seemingly high richness in a severely degraded and fragmented region, including large carnivores and endangered species, hides a wide variation in richness among fragments. This calls for urgent actions to improve the landscape for these animals to ensure their survival in the long term, as some populations are probably not viable in the long run.

Highlights

Forested areas worldwide have been suffering from changes due to intense land use associated with economic development, which has increased the amount of cultivated and urban areas, as well as road networks (Costa et al 2005)
The Atlantic Forest in Brazil is no exception to this pattern, with less than a third of its original forest cover remaining (Ribeiro et al 2009, Resende et al 2018)
We carried out the study in 8 sampling patches of seasonal semideciduous Atlantic Forest (Fig. 1)

Summary

Introduction

Forested areas worldwide have been suffering from changes due to intense land use associated with economic development, which has increased the amount of cultivated and urban areas, as well as road networks (Costa et al 2005). Most Atlantic Forest remnants are not pristine. They are small forest patches at distinct regeneration stages, as only 7.9% of the patches are larger than 100 ha (Ribeiro et al 2009, Fundação SOS Mata Atlântica and INPE 2015). The “interior” subregion (largely comprised of seasonal semideciduous forest) originally occupied the largest area of the Atlantic Forest, currently only 7% of the original forest in this subregion remains (the second worst scenario among the subregions) (Ribeiro et al 2009)

Methods

Results

Conclusion