'Candidatus Mycoplasma haematonasua' and tick-borne pathogens in ring-tailed coatis (Nasua nasua Linnaeus, 1976) from the Iguaçu National Park, Paraná State, southern Brazil.

The Iguaçu National Park (INP) is the largest remnant of Atlantic Forest in southern Brazil, representing an ecological continuum with Argentina. The INP harbours a diverse fauna, with ring-tailed coatis (Nasua nasua Linnaeus, 1976, Carnivora: Procyonidae) in close contact with tourists either begging and/or snatching food from visitors. A potentially novel haemotropic Mycoplasma sp. has been previously detected in the ring-tailed coatis from central-western and southern Brazil. Therefore, the aims of this study were to investigate the occurrence of haemotropic Mycoplasma sp. and tick-borne pathogens in wild ring-tailed coatis from the INP, Foz do Iguaçu municipality, Paraná State, southern Brazil. Blood samples were collected from 18 wild ring-tailed coatis and evaluated by conventional PCR (cPCR) assays for haemotropic Mycoplasma spp. (16S and 23S rRNA), Theileria/Babesia spp. (18S rRNA) and Ehrlichia/Anaplasma spp. (16S rRNA, sodB, dsb and groEL). Eight out of 18 (44.44%; 95% CI: 24.56%-66.28%) animals were positive for haemotropic Mycoplasma spp. All ring-tailed coatis tested negative for Theileria/Babesia spp. and only one out of 18 (5.56%; 95% CI: 0.99%-25.76%) animals tested positive for Ehrlichia/Anaplasma spp. by the 16S rRNA cPCR. Unfortunately, multiple attempts to sequence the 16S rRNA gene of the Ehrlichia/Anaplasma-positive sample have failed. Phylogenetic and network analysis of the hemoplasma 16S and 23S rRNA gene fragments confirmed that animals were infected by a potentially novel haemotropic Mycoplasma sp. previously reported in ring-tailed coatis from Brazil. The name 'Candidatus Mycoplasma haematonasua' is proposed for this novel organism.

Environmental and anthropogenic factors synergistically affect space use of jaguars.

Large terrestrial carnivores have undergone some of the largest population declines and range reductions of any species, which is of concern as they can have large effects on ecosystem dynamics and function.1-4 The jaguar (Panthera onca) is the apex predator throughout the majority of the Neotropics; however, its distribution has been reduced by >50% and it survives in increasingly isolated populations.5 Consequently, the range-wide management of the jaguar depends upon maintaining core populations connected through multi-national, transboundary cooperation, which requires understanding the movement ecology and space use of jaguars throughout their range.6-8 Using GPS telemetry data for 111 jaguars from 13 ecoregions within the four biomes that constitute the majority of jaguar habitat, we examined the landscape-level environmental and anthropogenic factors related to jaguar home range size and movement parameters. Home range size decreased with increasing net productivity and forest cover and increased with increasing road density. Speed decreased with increasing forest cover with no sexual differences, while males had more directional movements, but tortuosity in movements was not related to any landscape factors. We demonstrated a synergistic relationship between landscape-scale environmental and anthropogenic factors and jaguars' spatial needs, which has applications to the conservation strategy for the species throughout the Neotropics. Using large-scale collaboration, we overcame limitations from small sample sizes typical in large carnivore research to provide a mechanism to evaluate habitat quality for jaguars and an inferential modeling framework adaptable to the conservation of other large terrestrial carnivores.

Jaguar movement database: a GPS-based movement dataset of an apex predator in the Neotropics.

The field of movement ecology has rapidly grown during the last decade, with important advancements in tracking devices and analytical tools that have provided unprecedented insights into where, when, and why species move across a landscape. Although there has been an increasing emphasis on making animal movement data publicly available, there has also been a conspicuous dearth in the availability of such data on large carnivores. Globally, large predators are of conservation concern. However, due to their secretive behavior and low densities, obtaining movement data on apex predators is expensive and logistically challenging. Consequently, the relatively small sample sizes typical of large carnivore movement studies may limit insights into the ecology and behavior of these elusive predators. The aim of this initiative is to make available to the conservation-scientific community a dataset of 134,690 locations of jaguars (Panthera onca) collected from 117 individuals (54 males and 63 females) tracked by GPS technology. Individual jaguars were monitored in five different range countries representing a large portion of the species' distribution. This dataset may be used to answer a variety of ecological questions including but not limited to: improved models of connectivity from local to continental scales; the use of natural or human-modified landscapes by jaguars; movement behavior of jaguars in regions not represented in this dataset; intraspecific interactions; and predator-prey interactions. In making our dataset publicly available, we hope to motivate other research groups to do the same in the near future. Specifically, we aim to help inform a better understanding of jaguar movement ecology with applications towards effective decision making and maximizing long-term conservation efforts for this ecologically important species. There are no costs, copyright, or proprietary restrictions associated with this data set. When using this data set, please cite this article to recognize the effort involved in gathering and collating the data and the willingness of the authors to make it publicly available.