Effect of landscape attributes on the occurrence of the endangered golden-headed lion tamarin in southern Bahia, Brazil.

The golden-headed lion tamarin (Leontopithecus chrysomelas) is an endangered primate that occurs exclusively in the Atlantic Forest of southern Bahia, Brazil. Its geographic range has been severely reduced by deforestation and its populations are restricted to a human-modified landscape consisting primarily of Atlantic forest fragments and shade cacao (Theobroma cacao) agroforestry, locally known as cabrucas. In the last 30 years, there has been a 42% reduction in the geographic range and a 60% reduction in the population size of L. chrysomelas, with only 8% of its habitat represented by protected areas. Thus, we investigated the occurrence of L. chrysomelas in forest fragments and cabrucas based on interviews and using playback census, and evaluated the influence of landscape attributes on its occurrence. The occurrence was measured using a Generalized Linear Model using a set of 12 predictor variables, including fragment size and elevation. L. chrysomelas inhabited 186 (38%) of the 495 forest fragments and cabrucas. Most inhabited habitat patches (n = 169, 91%) are in the eastern portion (ca. 70 km wide region from the Atlantic coast to inland) of its geographic range. The remaining (n = 17, 9%) are in the western portion of the distribution, between 70 and 150 km from the Atlantic coast. Our models indicate a higher occurrence of L. chrysomelas in the eastern portion of its geographic range, where the landscape exhibits lower land cover diversity, greater functional connectivity, lower altitudes (<400 m), and is primarily composed of forest fragments and cabrucas with a higher core percentage. In contrast, we observed a lower occurrence of L. chrysomelas in the western portion, where the landscape is more diverse and heterogeneous due to anthropogenic activities, such as agriculture and livestock. We urge the establishment of ecological corridors via reforestation of degraded areas in the western portion of the range. This increase in habitat availability and suitability in the west together with the protection of the forests and cabrucas in the east would increase our chances of saving L. chrysomelas from extinction.

Data on vegetation across forest edges from the FERN (Forest Edge Research Network).

Many studies have focused on vegetation across forest edges to study impacts of edges created by human activities on forest structure and composition, or patterns of vegetation at inherent natural edges. Our objective was to create a database of plant-related variables across different types of edges from various studies (mainly from across Canada, but also in Brazil and Belize) to facilitate edge research. We compiled data on vegetation along more than 300 transects perpendicular to forest edges adjacent to clear-cuts, burned areas, bogs, lakes, barrens, insect disturbances, and riparian areas from 24 studies conducted over the past three decades. Data were compiled for more than 400 plant species and forest structure variables (e.g., trees, logs, canopy cover). All data were collected with a similar sampling design of quadrats along transects perpendicular to forest edges, but with varying numbers of transects and quadrats, and distances from the edge. The purpose for most of the studies was either to determine the distance of edge influence (edge width) or to explore the pattern of vegetation along the edge to interior gradient. We provide data tables for the cover of plant species and functional groups, the species and size of live and dead trees, the density of saplings, maximum height of functional groups and shrub species, and the cover of functional groups at different heights (vertical distribution of vegetation). The Forest Edge Research Network (FERN) database provides extensive data on many variables that can be used for further study including meta-analyses and can assist in answering questions important to conservation efforts (e.g., how is distance of edge influence from created edges affected by different factors?). We plan to expand this database with subsequent studies from the authors and we invite others to contribute to make this a more global database. The data are released under a CC0 license. When using these data, we ask that you cite this data paper and any relevant publications listed in our metadata file. We also encourage you to contact the first author if you are planning to use or contribute to this database.

ATLANTIC BIRDS: a data set of bird species from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.

South America holds 30% of the world's avifauna, with the Atlantic Forest representing one of the richest regions of the Neotropics. Here we have compiled a data set on Brazilian Atlantic Forest bird occurrence (150,423) and abundance samples (N = 832 bird species; 33,119 bird individuals) using multiple methods, including qualitative surveys, mist nets, point counts, and line transects). We used four main sources of data: museum collections, on-line databases, literature sources, and unpublished reports. The data set comprises 4,122 localities and data from 1815 to 2017. Most studies were conducted in the Florestas de Interior (1,510 localities) and Serra do Mar (1,280 localities) biogeographic sub-regions. Considering the three main quantitative methods (mist net, point count, and line transect), we compiled abundance data for 745 species in 576 communities. In the data set, the most frequent species were Basileuterus culicivorus, Cyclaris gujanensis, and Conophaga lineata. There were 71 singletons, such as Lipaugus conditus and Calyptura cristata. We suggest that this small number of records reinforces the critical situation of these taxa in the Atlantic Forest. The information provided in this data set can be used for macroecological studies and to foster conservation strategies in this biodiversity hotspot. No copyright restrictions are associated with the data set. Please cite this Data Paper if data are used in publications and teaching events.

ATLANTIC BATS: a data set of bat communities from the Atlantic Forests of South America.

Bats are the second most diverse mammal order and they provide vital ecosystem functions (e.g., pollination, seed dispersal, and nutrient flux in caves) and services (e.g., crop pest suppression). Bats are also important vectors of infectious diseases, harboring more than 100 different virus types. In the present study, we compiled information on bat communities from the Atlantic Forests of South America, a species-rich biome that is highly threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation. The ATLANTIC BATS data set comprises 135 quantitative studies carried out in 205 sites, which cover most vegetation types of the tropical and subtropical Atlantic Forest: dense ombrophilous forest, mixed ombrophilous forest, semideciduous forest, deciduous forest, savanna, steppe, and open ombrophilous forest. The data set includes information on more than 90,000 captures of 98 bat species of eight families. Species richness averaged 12.1 per site, with a median value of 10 species (ranging from 1 to 53 species). Six species occurred in more than 50% of the communities: Artibeus lituratus, Carollia perspicillata, Sturnira lilium, Artibeus fimbriatus, Glossophaga soricina, and Platyrrhinus lineatus. The number of captures divided by sampling effort, a proxy for abundance, varied from 0.000001 to 0.77 individuals·h-1 ·m-2 (0.04 ± 0.007 individuals·h-1 ·m-2 ). Our data set reveals a hyper-dominance of eight species that together that comprise 80% of all captures: Platyrrhinus lineatus (2.3%), Molossus molossus (2.8%), Artibeus obscurus (3.4%), Artibeus planirostris (5.2%), Artibeus fimbriatus (7%), Sturnira lilium (14.5%), Carollia perspicillata (15.6%), and Artibeus lituratus (29.2%).

Space Use and Movement of a Neotropical Top Predator: The Endangered Jaguar.

Accurately estimating home range and understanding movement behavior can provide important information on ecological processes. Advances in data collection and analysis have improved our ability to estimate home range and movement parameters, both of which have the potential to impact species conservation. Fitting continuous-time movement model to data and incorporating the autocorrelated kernel density estimator (AKDE), we investigated range residency of forty-four jaguars fit with GPS collars across five biomes in Brazil and Argentina. We assessed home range and movement parameters of range resident animals and compared AKDE estimates with kernel density estimates (KDE). We accounted for differential space use and movement among individuals, sex, region, and habitat quality. Thirty-three (80%) of collared jaguars were range resident. Home range estimates using AKDE were 1.02 to 4.80 times larger than KDE estimates that did not consider autocorrelation. Males exhibited larger home ranges, more directional movement paths, and a trend towards larger distances traveled per day. Jaguars with the largest home ranges occupied the Atlantic Forest, a biome with high levels of deforestation and high human population density. Our results fill a gap in the knowledge of the species' ecology with an aim towards better conservation of this endangered/critically endangered carnivore-the top predator in the Neotropics.

Threshold effect of habitat loss on bat richness in cerrado-forest landscapes.

Understanding how animal groups respond to contemporary habitat loss and fragmentation is essential for development of strategies for species conservation. Until now, there has been no consensus about how landscape degradation affects the diversity and distribution of Neotropical bats. Some studies demonstrate population declines and species loss in impacted areas, although the magnitude and generality of these effects on bat community structure are unclear. Empirical fragmentation thresholds predict an accentuated drop in biodiversity, and species richness in particular, when less than 30% of the original amount of habitat in the landscape remains. In this study, we tested whether bat species richness demonstrates this threshold response, based on 48 sites distributed across 12 landscapes with 9-88% remaining forest in Brazilian cerrado-forest formations. We also examined the degree to which abundance was similarly affected within four different feeding guilds. The threshold value for richness, below which bat diversity declines precipitously, was estimated at 47% of remaining forest. To verify if the response of bat abundance to habitat loss differed among feeding guilds, we used a model selection approach based on Akaike's information criterion. Models accounted for the amount of riparian forest, semideciduous forest, cerrado, tree plantations, secondary forest, and the total amount of forest in the landscape. We demonstrate a nonlinear effect of the contribution of tree plantations to frugivores, and a positive effect of the amount of cerrado to nectarivores and animalivores, the groups that responded most to decreases in amount of forest. We suggest that bat assemblages in interior Atlantic Forest and cerrado regions of southeastern Brazil are impoverished, since we found lower richness and abundance of different groups in landscapes with lower amounts of forest. The relatively higher threshold value of 47% suggests that bat communities have a relatively lower resistance to habitat degradation than other animal groups. Accordingly, conservation and restoration strategies should focus on increasing the amount of native vegetation of landscapes so as to enhance species richness of bats.

Diet Overlap and Foraging Activity between Feral Pigs and Native Peccaries in the Pantanal.

Inter-specific competition is considered one of the main selective pressures affecting species distribution and coexistence. Different species vary in the way they forage in order to minimize encounters with their competitors and with their predators. However, it is still poorly known whether and how native species change their foraging behavior in the presence of exotic species, particularly in South America. Here we compare diet overlap of fruits and foraging activity period of two sympatric native ungulates (the white-lipped peccary, Tayassu pecari, and the collared peccary, Pecari tajacu) with the invasive feral pig (Sus scrofa) in the Brazilian Pantanal. We found high diet overlap between white-lipped peccaries and feral pigs, but low overlap between collared peccaries and feral pigs. Furthermore, we found that feral pigs may influence the foraging period of both native peccaries, but in different ways. In the absence of feral pigs, collared peccary activity peaks in the early evening, possibly allowing them to avoid white-lipped peccary activity peaks, which occur in the morning. In the presence of feral pigs, collared peccaries forage mostly in early morning, while white-lipped peccaries forage throughout the day. Our results indicate that collared peccaries may avoid foraging at the same time as white-lipped peccaries. However, they forage during the same periods as feral pigs, with whom they have lower diet overlap. Our study highlights how an exotic species may alter interactions between native species by interfering in their foraging periods.

Functional extinction of birds drives rapid evolutionary changes in seed size.

Local extinctions have cascading effects on ecosystem functions, yet little is known about the potential for the rapid evolutionary change of species in human-modified scenarios. We show that the functional extinction of large-gape seed dispersers in the Brazilian Atlantic forest is associated with the consistent reduction of the seed size of a keystone palm species. Among 22 palm populations, areas deprived of large avian frugivores for several decades present smaller seeds than nondefaunated forests, with negative consequences for palm regeneration. Coalescence and phenotypic selection models indicate that seed size reduction most likely occurred within the past 100 years, associated with human-driven fragmentation. The fast-paced defaunation of large vertebrates is most likely causing unprecedented changes in the evolutionary trajectories and community composition of tropical forests.

Functional redundancy and complementarities of seed dispersal by the last neotropical megafrugivores.

BACKGROUND: Functional redundancy has been debated largely in ecology and conservation, yet we lack detailed empirical studies on the roles of functionally similar species in ecosystem function. Large bodied frugivores may disperse similar plant species and have strong impact on plant recruitment in tropical forests. The two largest frugivores in the neotropics, tapirs (Tapirus terrestris) and muriquis (Brachyteles arachnoides) are potential candidates for functional redundancy on seed dispersal effectiveness. Here we provide a comparison of the quantitative, qualitative and spatial effects on seed dispersal by these megafrugivores in a continuous Brazilian Atlantic forest. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We found a low overlap of plant species dispersed by both muriquis and tapirs. A group of 35 muriquis occupied an area of 850 ha and dispersed 5 times more plant species, and 13 times more seeds than 22 tapirs living in the same area. Muriquis dispersed 2.4 times more seeds in any random position than tapirs. This can be explained mainly because seed deposition by muriquis leaves less empty space than tapirs. However, tapirs are able to disperse larger seeds than muriquis and move them into sites not reached by primates, such as large forest gaps, open areas and fragments nearby. Based on published information we found 302 plant species that are dispersed by at least one of these megafrugivores in the Brazilian Atlantic forest. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our study showed that both megafrugivores play complementary rather than redundant roles as seed dispersers. Although tapirs disperse fewer seeds and species than muriquis, they disperse larger-seeded species and in places not used by primates. The selective extinction of these megafrugivores will change the spatial seed rain they generate and may have negative effects on the recruitment of several plant species, particularly those with large seeds that have muriquis and tapirs as the last living seed dispersers.