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Forest cover mediates large and medium-sized mammal occurrence in a critical link of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor.

ABSTRACT: Connectivity of natural areas through biological corridors is essential for ecosystem resilience and biodiversity conservation. However, robust assessments of biodiversity in corridor areas are often hindered by logistical constraints and the statistical challenges of modeling data from multiple species. Herein, we used a hierarchical community occupancy model in a Bayesian framework to evaluate the status of medium and large-sized mammals in a critical link of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor (MBC) in Costa Rica. We used camera traps deployed from 2013-2017 to detect 18 medium (1-15 kg) and 6 large (>15 kg) mammal species in a portion of two Jaguar Conservation Units (JCUs) and the Corridor linking them. Camera traps operated for 16,904 trap nights across 209 stations, covering an area of 880 km2. Forest cover was the most important driver of medium and large-sized mammal habitat use, with forest specialists such as jaguars (Panthera onca) and pumas (Puma concolor) strongly associated with high forest cover, while habitat generalists such as coyotes (Canis latrans) and raccoons (Procyon lotor) were associated with low forest cover. Medium and large-sized mammal species richness was lower in the Corridor area ([Formula: see text] = 9.78±1.84) than in the portions evaluated of the two JCUs ([Formula: see text] = 11.50±1.52). Puma and jaguar habitat use probabilities were strongly correlated with large prey species richness (jaguar, r = 0.59, p<0.001; puma, r = 0.72, p<0.001), and correlated to a lesser extent with medium prey species richness (jaguar, r = 0.36, p = 0.003; puma, r = 0.23, p = 0.064). Low estimated jaguar habitat use probability in one JCU (Central Volcanic Cordillera: [Formula: see text] = 0.15±0.11) suggests that this is not the jaguar stronghold previously assumed. In addition, the western half of the Corridor has low richness of large mammals, making it necessary to take urgent actions to secure habitat connectivity for mammal populations.

SUBMITTER: Salom-Perez R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7996086 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:The rapid and large-scale urbanization of peri-urban areas poses major and complex challenges for wildlife conservation. We used population viability analysis (PVA) to evaluate the influence of urban encroachment, fire, and fauna crossing structures, with and without accounting for inbreeding effects, on the metapopulation viability of a medium-sized ground-dwelling mammal, the southern brown bandicoot (Isoodon obesulus), in the rapidly expanding city of Perth, Australia. We surveyed two metapopulations over one and a half years, and parameterized the PVA models using largely field-collected data. The models revealed that spatial isolation imposed by housing and road encroachment has major impacts on I. obesulus. Although the species is known to persist in small metapopulations at moderate levels of habitat fragmentation, the models indicate that these populations become highly vulnerable to demographic decline, genetic deterioration, and local extinction under increasing habitat connectivity loss. Isolated metapopulations were also predicted to be highly sensitive to fire, with large-scale fires having greater negative impacts on population abundance than small-scale ones. To reduce the risk of decline and local extirpation of I. obesulus and other small- to medium-sized ground-dwelling mammals in urbanizing, fire prone landscapes, we recommend that remnant vegetation and vegetated, structurally-complex corridors between habitat patches be retained. Well-designed road underpasses can be effective to connect habitat patches and reduce the probability of inbreeding and genetic differentiation; however, adjustment of fire management practices to limit the size of unplanned fires and ensure the retention of long unburnt vegetation will also be required to ensure persistence. Our study supports the evidence that in rapidly urbanizing landscapes, a pro-active conservation approach is required that manages species at the metapopulation level and that prioritizes metapopulations and habitat with greater long-term probability of persistence and conservation capacity, respectively. This strategy may help us prevent future declines and local extirpations, and currently relatively common species from becoming rare.

Project description:BackgroundHabitat fragmentation is a primary driver of wildlife loss, and the establishment of biological corridors is a conservation strategy to mitigate this problem. Identifying areas with high potential functional connectivity typically relies on the assessment of landscape resistance to movement. Many modeling approaches exist to estimate resistance surfaces but to date only a handful of studies compared the outputs resulting from different methods. Moreover, as many species are threatened by fragmentation, effective biodiversity conservation requires that corridors simultaneously meet the needs of multiple species. While many corridor planning initiatives focus on single species, we here used a combination of data types and analytical approaches to identify and compare corridors for several large mammal species within the Panama portion of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor.MethodsWe divided a large mammal assemblage into two groups depending on the species sensitivity to habitat disturbance. We subsequently used cost-distance methods to produce multi-species corridors which were modeled on the basis of (i) occupancy of nine species derived from camera trapping data collected across Panama, and (ii) step selection functions based on GPS telemetry data from white-lipped peccary Tayassu pecari, puma Puma concolor, and ocelot Leopardus pardalis. In addition to different data sources and species groups, we also used different transformation curves to convert occupancy and step-selection results into landscape resistance values.ResultsCorridors modeled differed between sensitive and tolerant species, between the data sets, and between the transformation curves. There were more corridors identified for tolerant species than for sensitive species. For tolerant species, several corridors developed with occupancy data overlapped with corridors produced with step selection functions, but this was not the case for sensitive species.ConclusionOur study represents the first comparison of multispecies corridors parametrized with step selection functions versus occupancy models. Given the wide variability in output corridors, our findings underscore the need to consider the ecological requirements of several species. Our results also suggest that occupancy models can be used for estimating connectivity of generalist species. Finally, this effort allowed to identify important corridors within the MBC (i) at a country scale and (ii) for several species simultaneously to accurately inform the local authorities in conservation planning. The approach we present is reproducible in other sites and/or for other species.

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Forest cover mediates large and medium-sized mammal occurrence in a critical link of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor.

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