Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Spatial ecology of the water opossum Chironectes minimus in Atlantic Forest streams

  • Original investigation
  • Published:
Mammalian Biology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The water opossum Chironectes minimus is the world’s only semi-aquatic marsupial. It is considered rare, and it is reported on several regional conservation lists of species as either endangered or data deficient. Given its uniqueness and the poor knowledge of its ecology, we aimed to investigate home range size and overlap and habitat selection of the water opossum in Atlantic Forest streams in southeastern Brazil. We radio tracked water opossums and collected information about their habitats and behaviour from October 2004 to April 2010. We combined common home range estimators for animals living in linear habitats with the synoptic model of home range and habitat selection. For the 10 individuals monitored, the home ranges varied between 0.80 and 9.66 km of watercourses; none of them had exclusive home ranges. The home range size for males was, on average, three times larger than for females. The overlap data showed that, on average, one male could encompass the home ranges of up to five females simultaneously, but more than one male could have access to the same female. For habitat selection at the individual level, we could not find any strong influence of habitat features on water opossum preferences because individuals selected different sets of habitat variables. However, at the population level, we found a negative relationship between home range size and river size. The water opossum seems to prefer shallow and narrow watercourses to establish its home ranges. Here, we present valuable information to advance our knowledge of the water opossum and its ecology, which is urgent for conservation purposes.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Adler, G. H., 2011. Spacing patterns and social mating systems of echimyid rodents. J. Mammal. 92, 31–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Arnold, T.W., 2010. Uninformative parameters and model selection using Akaike’s information criterion. J. Wildl. Manage. 74, 1175–1178.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bates, D., Mächler, M., Bolker, B., Walker, S., 2015. Fitting linear mixed-effects models using (lme4). J. Stat. Softw. 67, 1–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blundell, G.M., Maier, J.A.K., Debevec, E.M., 2001. Linear home hanges: effects of smoothing, sample size, and autocorrelation on kernel estimates. Ecol. Monogr. 71, 469–489.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bressiani, V.B., Graipel, M.E., 2008. Comparacão de metodos para captura da cuíca d’água Chironectes minimus (Zimmerman, 1780) (Mammalia, Didelphidae), no sul do Brasil. Mastozool. Neotrop. 15, 33–39.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burnham, K., Anderson, D., 2002. Model Selection and Multimodel Inference: a Practical Information-theoretic Approach, 2nd edn. Springer-Verlag, New York. Calenge, C, 2006. The package “adehabitat” for the R software: a tool for the analysis of space and habitat use by animals. Ecol. Modell. 7, 516–519.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chiarello, A.G., Aguilar, L.M.D.S., Cerqueira, R., de Melo, F.R., Rodrigues, F.H.G., da Silva, V.M.F., 2008. Mamíferos Ameacados de Extincão no Brasil. In: Machado, A.B.M., Drummond, G.M., Paglia, A.P. (Eds.), Livro Vermelho da Fauna Brasileira Ameacada de Extincão, vol. II. MMA—Ministério do Meio Ambiente, Brasília.

  • Clutton-Brock, T.H., 1989. Mammalian mating systems. Proc. R. Soc. 236, 339–372.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Leite, M.S., Galliez, M., Queiroz, T.L., Fernandez, F.A.S., 2016. Data from: spatial ecology of the water opossum Chironectes minimus in Atlantic forest streams.

  • Movebank Data Repos., https://doi.org/10.5441/001/1.4rr97k10.

  • Emlen, S.T., Oring, L.W., 1977. Ecology sexual selection, and the evolution of mating systems. Science 197, 215–223.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Fernandez, F.A.S., Galliez, M., Leite, M.S., Queiroz, T.L., Palmeirim, A.F., 2015. Natural history of the water opossum Chironectes minimus: a review. Oecol. Aust. 19, 47–62.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fisher, D.O., Owens, I.P.F., 2000. Female home range size and the evolution of social organization in macropod marsupials. J. Anim. Ecol. 69, 1083–1098.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fisher, D.O., Owens, I.P.F., Johnson, C.N., 2001. The ecological basis of life history variation in marsupials. Ecology 82, 3531–3540.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Galliez, M., Fernandez, F.A.S., 2012. Spatial segregation between the water opossum Chironectes minimus and the water rat Nectomys squamipes: just competition avoidance or a conservation problem as well? Mamm. Biol. 77, 447–450.

    Google Scholar 

  • Galliez, M., Leite, M.S., Queiroz, T.L., Fernandez, F.A.S., 2009. Ecology of the water opossum Chironectes minimus in Atlantic forest streams of southeastern Brazil. J. Mammal. 90, 93–103.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Horne, J., Craig, T., Joly, K., Stout, G., Cebrian, M., Garton, E., 2014. Population characteristics, space use and habitat selection of two non-migratory caribou herds in central Alaska, 1994–2009. Rangifer 34, 1–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Horne,J.S., Garton, E.O., Rachlow, J.L., 2008. A synoptic model of animal space use: simultaneous estimation of home range, habitat selection, and inter/intra-specific relationships. Ecol. Modell. 214, 338–348.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, D., 1980. The comparison of usage and availability measurements for evaluating resource preference. Ecology 71, 65–71.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leite, M.S., Galliez, M., Queiroz, T.L., Lima, D.O., Cid, B., Pinho, G., Fernandez, F., Caramaschi, E., 2009. O gambá d’água como espécie guarda-chuva para a conservacão da fauna associada a rios de Mata Atlântica/RJ Technical Report., Available at: https://doi.org/www.fundacaogrupoboticario.org.br/pt/o-que-fazemos/editais/pages/apoio-projetos-detalhes.aspx?identificador=0750_20071.

  • Marshall, L, 1978. Chironectes minimus. Mamm. Species 109, 1–6.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mattisson, J., Sand, H., Wabakken, P., Gervasi, V., Liberg, O., Linnell, J.D.C., Rauset, G.R., Pedersen, H.C., 2013. Home range size variation in a recovering wolf population: evaluating the effect of environmental, demographic, and social factors. Oecologia 173, 813–825.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McClintic, L.F., Taylor, J.D., Jones, J.C., Singleton, R.D., Wang, G., 2014. Effects of spatiotemporal resource heterogeneity on home range size of American beaver. J. Zool. 293, 134–141.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ostfeld, R.S., 1990. The ecology of territoriality in small mammals. Trends Ecol. Evol. 5, 411–415.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Palmeirim, A.F., Leite, M.S., Santos-Reis, M., Fernandez, F.A.S., 2014. Habitat selection for resting sites by the water opossum (Chironectes minimus) in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. Stud. Neotrop. Fauna Environ. 49, 231–238.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Powell, R.A., Mitchell, M.S., 2012. What is a home range? J. Mammal. 93, 948–958.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pulliam, H.R., Danielson, B.J., 1991. Sources, sinks, and habitat selection—a landscape perspective on population-dynamics. Am. Nat. 137, S50–S66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Quaglietta, L, Fonseca, V.C., Mira, A., Boitani, L, 2014. Sociospatial organization of a solitary carnivore, the Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra). J. Mammal. 95, 140–150.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • R Core Team, 2015. A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ribeiro, M.C., Metzger, J.P., Martensen, A.C., Ponzoni, F.J., Hirota, M.M., 2009. The Brazilian Atlantic forest: how much is left, and how is the remaining forest distributed? Implications for conservation. Biol. Conserv. 142, 1141–1153.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sauer, T.M., Ben-David, M., Bowyer, R., 1999. A new application of the adaptive-kernel method. Estimating linear home ranges of river otters, Lutra canadensis. Can. Field-Nat. 113, 419–424.

    Google Scholar 

  • Slaght, J.C., Horne,J.S., Surmach, S.G., Gutiérrez, R.J., 2013. Home range and resource selection by animals constrained by linear habitat features: an example of Blakiston’s fish owl. J. Appl. Ecol. 50, 1350–1357.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Somers, M.J., Nel, J.A.J., 2004. Movement patterns and home range of Cape clawless otters (Aonyx capensis), affected by high food density patches. J. Zool. 262, 91–98.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tucker, M.A., Ord, T.J., Rogers, T.L., 2014. Evolutionary predictors of mammalian home range size: body mass, diet and the environment. Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr. 23, 1105–1114.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vanak, A.T., Gompper, M.E., 2010. Multi-scale resource selection and spatial ecology of the Indian fox in a human-dominated dry grassland ecosystem. J. Zool. 281, 140–148.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • White, G., Garrot, R., 1990. Analysis of Wildlife Radiotracking Data. Academic Press, San Diego.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Author notes

  1. Melina de Souza Leite

    Present address: Departamento de Ecologia, Universidade de São Paulo, 05508-090, SP, Brazil

  2. Maron Galliez

    Present address: Departamento de Biologia e Biotecnologia, Instituto Federal do Rio de Janeiro, 20270-021, RJ, Brazil

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratório de Ecologia e Conservação de Populações, Departamento de Ecologia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, CxP 68020, 21941-590, RJ, Brazil

    Melina de Souza Leite, Maron Galliez, Thiago Lopes Queiroz & Fernando A. A. Fernandez

Authors
  1. Melina de Souza Leite
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Maron Galliez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Thiago Lopes Queiroz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Fernando A. A. Fernandez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Melina de Souza Leite.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Leite, M., Galliez, M., Queiroz, T.L. et al. Spatial ecology of the water opossum Chironectes minimus in Atlantic Forest streams. Mamm Biol 81, 480–487 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mambio.2016.05.003

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mambio.2016.05.003

Keywords

Search

Navigation