You can’t run but you can hide: the negative influence of human presence on mid-sized mammals on an Atlantic island

Journal of Coastal Conservation volume 21, pages829–836(2017)Cite this article

Abstract

Here, we report the results of a camera-trapping survey of mid-sized (1–50 kg) mammals on an oceanic Atlantic forest island in Brazil. Despite 80% of the island being formally reserved for conservation, the island’s northern areas support a small, but rapidly growing human population that we expected would disturb the mammals and their foraging and movement behaviors. Hunting activities are also more frequent and severe on the north side of the island, closer to the villages. We tested the following hypothesis: the probability of occupancy, detectability, and abundance of mid-sized mammals will be higher in less-disturbed areas on southern parts of the island than in more-disturbed areas to the north. Ordination using multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) highlighted that mammal assemblages were differentiated between the northern and southern slope areas, and regression analyses showed MDS scores to be associated strongly with an index of human population density. Occupancy models for Didelphis aurita, Dasypus novemcinctus, Dasyprocta leporina, and Cuniculus paca showed no effect of habitat covariates, but there were marked effects of human activity impact on the detection probability of all species, except D. aurita. Species detections and local abundances were higher in the less disturbed southern parts of the island. Our results support the notion that mid-sized mammals will change their movement and foraging behaviors as a function of human activities, even inside reserved, protected areas.

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Acknowledgments

We thank FAPERJ (E-26/103.016/2011 to HGB), and CNPq (307715/2009-4 to HGB) for financing the study. I. Lessa thanks the Brazilian Ministry of Education (CAPES) for a MSc scholarship to the Post-Graduate Program of Ecology and Evolution of the University of Rio de Janeiro State. We are also thankful to the managers of PEIG, INEA and all researchers that contributed to this work, especially José Mello, Mariana Soares and Rodrigo Salles.

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Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology, Institute of Biology, Brasília University, Brasília, Brazil

    Isadora Cristina Motta Lessa

  2. Department of Ecology, Institute of Biology Roberto Alcantara Gomes – IBRAG, Rio de Janeiro State University – UERJ, Rua São Francisco Xavier, n° 524, Pavilhão Haroldo Lisboa da Cunha, 2° andar, sala 224. Bairro Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, CEP: 20,550–019, Brazil

    Átilla Colombo Ferreguetti, Maja Kajin & Helena Godoy Bergallo

  3. School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia

    Christopher R. Dickman

Authors
  1. Isadora Cristina Motta Lessa
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  2. Átilla Colombo Ferreguetti
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  3. Maja Kajin
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  4. Christopher R. Dickman
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  5. Helena Godoy Bergallo
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Correspondence to Átilla Colombo Ferreguetti.

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Lessa, I.C.M., Ferreguetti, Á.C., Kajin, M. et al. You can’t run but you can hide: the negative influence of human presence on mid-sized mammals on an Atlantic island. J Coast Conserv 21, 829–836 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11852-017-0544-2

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Keywords

  • Atlantic forest
  • Camera-trapping
  • Detectability
  • Environmental factors
  • Human impact
  • Mammal assemblages