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The impact of habitat fragmentation on the ecology of xenarthrans (Mammalia) in the Brazilian Cerrado

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Abstract

The impact of deforestation and fragmentation upon ecologically important and poorly known groups is currently an important issue for conservation biology. Herein we describe xenathran communities across the Brazilian Cerrado and study the effects of habitat fragmentation on occupancy and activity patterns on these assemblages. Our hypothesis was that larger and specialized species would be more ecologically sensitive, and likely to exhibit shifts in their activity patterns in more deforested areas as a way of dealing with the myriad of effects involved in the fragmentation process. The study was conducted by camera trapping in ten Cerrado sites. Five species were analyzed: Priodontes maximus, Euphractus sexcinctus, Dasypus novemcintus (Order Cingulata), Tamandua tetradactyla and Myrmecophaga tridactyla (Order Pilosa). Fragmentation was quantified by landscape metrics, calculated on scales that matched the species’ home ranges. Occupancy and detection probability analyses were conducted to test for shifts in occupancy under different fragmentation conditions. A mixed-effects model analysis was conducted to test for shifts in species’ frequency of records related to time of day, controlling for spatial autocorrelation by means of eigenvector-based spatial filters for the models’ residuals. There were no changes in activity pattern between more and less fragmented areas, so that our behavioural plasticity hypothesis was not corroborated for this group. The lack of changes in the patterns could be explained by a species’ time-lag response, or by the lack of a wide enough fragmentation gradient in our study.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to give thanks for the Earthwatch Institute, the Monsanto Foundation, the Memphis Zoo and the CI Brazil for their financial support; the landowners for giving permission to work at their properties; the IBAMA for granting research licenses for working in protected areas; and the many volunteers and trainees who helped in the field. This study also received a technical support from the Núcleo Regional do DF da Rede ComCerrado/MCT. We would also like to thank the Graduate Program in Ecology of the University of Brasilia and the Brazilian National Council of Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), for the scholarship awarded to Babi Zimbres and research grant to J. Marinho-Filho. FAPDF also provided financial support to JMF and RBM (Pronex 193000563-2009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Zoologia, Instituto de Biologia, Universidade de Brasília, Campus Darcy Ribeiro, CEP 70910-900, Brasília, DF, Brazil

    Barbara Zimbres, Ricardo B. Machado & Jader Marinho-Filho

  2. Jaguar Conservation Fund, Cx. P. 86, Mineiros, GO, Brazil

    Mariana M. Furtado, Anah T. A. Jácomo, Leandro Silveira, Rahel Sollmann & Natália M. Tôrres

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  1. Barbara Zimbres
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  2. Mariana M. Furtado
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  3. Anah T. A. Jácomo
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  4. Leandro Silveira
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  6. Natália M. Tôrres
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  8. Jader Marinho-Filho
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Correspondence to Barbara Zimbres.

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Zimbres, B., Furtado, M.M., Jácomo, A.T.A. et al. The impact of habitat fragmentation on the ecology of xenarthrans (Mammalia) in the Brazilian Cerrado. Landscape Ecol 28, 259–269 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-012-9832-2

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