RESUMEN
Mammalian carnivores are considered a key group in maintaining ecological health and can indicate potential ecological integrity in landscapes where they occur. Carnivores also hold high conservation value and their habitat requirements can guide management and conservation plans. The order Carnivora has 84 species from 8 families in the Neotropical region: Canidae; Felidae; Mephitidae; Mustelidae; Otariidae; Phocidae; Procyonidae; and Ursidae. Herein, we include published and unpublished data on native terrestrial Neotropical carnivores (Canidae; Felidae; Mephitidae; Mustelidae; Procyonidae; and Ursidae). NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES is a publicly available data set that includes 99,605 data entries from 35,511 unique georeferenced coordinates. Detection/non‐detection and quantitative data were obtained from 1818 to 2018 by researchers, governmental agencies, non‐governmental organizations, and private consultants. Data were collected using several methods including camera trapping, museum collections, roadkill, line transect, and opportunistic records. Literature (peerreviewed and grey literature) from Portuguese, Spanish and English were incorporated in this compilation. Most of the data set consists of detection data entries (n = 79,343; 79.7%) but also includes non‐detection data (n = 20,262; 20.3%). Of those, 43.3% also include count data (n = 43,151). The information available in NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES will contribute to macroecological, ecological, and conservation questions in multiple spatio‐temporal perspectives. As carnivores play key roles in trophic interactions, a better understanding of their distribution and habitat requirements are essential to establish conservation management plans and safeguard the future ecological health of Neotropical ecosystems. Our data paper, combined with other largescale data sets, has great potential to clarify species distribution and related ecological processes within the Neotropics. There are no copyright restrictions and no restriction for using data from this data paper, as long as the data paper is cited as the source of the information used. We also request that users inform us of how they intend to use the data.
RESUMEN
Abstract The Restinga forests are plant formations associated to the Atlantic Forest which still have not been much studied in terms of their mastofauna. The objective of the present work was to list for the first time the mammal species found in a Restinga on northeastern Brazil and show the similarities on species composition to other areas of the same environment and of Atlantic Forest. Our records were based on several complementary approaches: field survey, interviews, and museum collections. Subsequently, we performed similarity analysis between Restinga areas along Brazil and Atlantic Forest areas. We found a total of 30 species of mammals distributed in 28 genera, 16 families and 7 orders for Restinga of Mataraca. Species richness was similar to other Restinga areas and similarity analyzes pointed out that Restingas are more closely related to adjacent Atlantic Forest areas than to other Restingas in the country. This suggests that Restingas do not exhibit an autochthone fauna, but rather a faunal subsample of neighbor Atlantic Forest. Therefore, conservations policies for the Restinga habitat depends not only on actions focused on this habitat, but on initiatives that encompass nearby Atlantic Forest remnants, allowing the connectivity between these habitats.
Resumo As restingas são formações vegetais associadas à Floresta Atlântica e ainda pouco exploradas em relação a sua mastofauna. O objetivo desse trabalho foi listar pela primeira vez as espécies de mamíferos presentes em uma restinga no nordeste do Brasil e mostrar sua similaridade com outras áreas do mesmo ambiente e de Mata Atlântica. A listagem foi baseada em diversas abordagens complementares: coletas, entrevistas, material em coleção. Posteriormente realizamos análises de similaridade entre áreas de restinga ao longo do Brasil e áreas de Mata Atlântica. Encontramos um total de 30 espécies de mamíferos distribuídas em 28 gêneros, 16 famílias e sete ordens para restinga de Mataraca. A riqueza ficou próxima a de outras áreas de restinga e as análises de similaridade apontaram que as restingas são mais proximamente relacionadas com as áreas adjacentes de Floresta Atlântica do que com as outras restingas no país. Isso sugere que as Restingas não exibem uma fauna autóctone ou endêmica, mas que sua fauna representa um subconjunto da fauna da Floresta Atlântica mais próxima. Dessa forma, estratégias para a conservação das Restingas não dependem apenas de ações nesse ambiente, mas de iniciativas que atinjam áreas de Mata Atlântica próximas, que garantam a conectividade entre estas.
