Abstract
Mammal communities in the vicinity of human settlements are often subject to subsistence hunting and retaliatory killings. We used fourteen digital camera traps equipped with infrared triggers to sample the medium-sized and large mammal communities for ca. 34 (±1.64) days per site. Diversity was measured as both Shannon entropy and Fager´s number of moves (NMS), and dominance was quantified using the Berger-Parker index. We used Kruskall-Wallis tests to investigate if there were statistically significant differences in richness, diversity and dominance among the sites. At an overall sampling effort of 1,946 trap days we recorded 216 independent observations of a total of 20 species belonging to 17 genera and 15 families. Richness and diversity appeared to be determined by forest structure, since, independent of the level of human impact, the richest areas were those closest to the ombrophilous forests of southern Guyana shield, closest to central Amazonia, whereas the poorest were at those sites closest to the vegetation mosaics of central Guyana shield. The disappearance of Tayassu pecari from the impacted areas as well as higher relative abundances in the protected areas, albeit not significant, foresees a possible bleak future for the mammalian assemblages in the near future.
Highlights
Studies in South America, India, and Africa (Hill et al 1997, Naughton-Treves et al 2003, Rist et al 2009, Levi et al 2009, 2011, Pillay et al 2011, Rovero et al 2012) have shown that deforestation and hunting have been the major drivers of mammalian assemblages decline and mass extinction (Mendes Pontes et al 2016)
Richness and diversity of terrestrial large mammals in the Neotropics is higher in strictly protected areas that are surrounded by other undisturbed forests than in those subject to deforestation and hunting in its surroundings, and is lowest in highly impacted areas (Tobler et al 2008, Ahumada et al 2011, Pickles et al 2011, Botelho et al 2012, Santos and Oliveira 2012, Carvalho et al 2014, Melo et al 2015, Meyer et al 2015)
In strictly protected areas that are surrounded by other undisturbed forests, Carnivora and Artiodactyla are among the richest mammalian orders (Santos and Oliveira 2012, Carvalho et al 2014), whereas in protected areas that are subjected to anthropogenic impacts in its surroundings, Carnivora may still be the most speciose order, Rodentia and Xenarthra may replace Artiodactyla and become the most species-rich orders (Ahumada et al 2013, Michalski et al 2015, Lizcano et al 2016)
Summary
Studies in South America, India, and Africa (Hill et al 1997, Naughton-Treves et al 2003, Rist et al 2009, Levi et al 2009, 2011, Pillay et al 2011, Rovero et al 2012) have shown that deforestation and hunting have been the major drivers of mammalian assemblages decline and mass extinction (Mendes Pontes et al 2016). The first to become rare or extinct from the impacted areas are the large-bodied, terrestrial mammals such as white-lipped peccary, Tayassu pecari, jaguar, Panthera onca, giant ant-eater, Myrmecophaga tridactyla, tapir, Tapirus terrestris, and puma, Puma concolor, with T. pecari being one of the most sensitive, and the first to go locally or, regionally, extinct (Azevedo and Conforti 2008, Peres 1996, Reyna-Hurtado and Tanner 2007, Naranjo and Bodmer 2007, Richard-Hansen et al 2014, Melo et al 2015, Meyer et al 2015) This is due to their higher energetic demands, larger home ranges, slower reproductive rates, and densities (Peres 2000, Brown and Brown 1992, Grelle et al 2006)
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