Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world and the first of the megadiversity countries, accounting for roughly 14% of the world's biota. It has the largest mammal diversity (more than 530 described species) with many yet to be discovered and cataloged. Very few sites have been adequately surveyed, and local lists are usually incomplete, which makes for knowledge gaps that hamper conservation and management initiatives and regional analyses. According to the Brazilian Institute for the Environment (IBAMA), 66 species are threatened, and the World Conservation Union lists 74. Primates, mostly Atlantic Forest endemics, are the most endangered group (40% of the threatened taxa). Carnivores and rodents are also notable members of the lists. Twenty-nine percent of listed species are marine, 18% occur in the Atlantic Forest, 13% in the Pampas, 12% in the Cerrado, 11% in the Pantanal, 7% in the Amazon, and 6% in the Caatinga. Human-induced habitat loss and fragmentation are major threats to land mammals in Brazil, and large-and medium-sized mammals are hunted. The major threat to small mammals is the scarcity of basic scientific knowledge-taxonomy, systematics, distribution, and natural history. Aquatic mammals are threatened by commercial hunting, accidental netting, long-line fisheries, chemical pollution, habitat degradation, tourism, and boat traffic. Mammal conservation has benefited from a number of recent initiatives by government and nongovernmental organizations, including legislation, nationwide initiatives to define priority areas for conservation, management plans for some threatened species, sustainable landscape planning, and new protected areas. Given the rate of habitat loss, a nationwide program of short-and long-term field surveys and increased support for natural history collections is of particularly urgency. Progress has been made toward conserving Brazilian mammals in recent years, but threats are growing fast, and conservation science must keep growing to provide the wherewithal to minimize and remove these threats. Conservación de Mamíferos en BrasilResumen: Brasil es el quinto país más grande del mundo y el primero de los países megadiversos, con casi 14% de la biota mundial. Tiene la mayor diversidad de mamíferos (más de 530 especies descritas) con aun mucho por descubrir y catalogar. Pocos sitios han sido muestreados adecuadamente, y las listas locales generalmente están incompletas, lo que constituye huecos de conocimiento que obstaculizan iniciativas de conservación y manejo y análisis regionales. De acuerdo con el Instituto Brasileño del Medio Ambiente (IBAMA), sesenta y seis especies están amenazadas, y la Unión de Conservación Mundial enlista 74. Los Primates, principalmente endémicos del bosque Atlántico, son el grupo en mayor peligro. Veintinueve porciento de las especies enlistadas son marinas, 18% ocurren en el bosque Atlántico, 13% en las Pampas, 12% en el Cerrado, 11% en el Pantanal, 7% en el Amazonas y 6% en la Caatinga. La pérdida y fragmentación de hábitat inducida por huma...

The major aim of this study was to compare the phylogeographic patterns of codistributed bats and small nonvolant Neotropical mammals. Cytochrome b sequences (mitochondrial DNA) were obtained for a total of 275 bats representing 17 species. The tissue samples were collected in coastal Brazil, and were available from Mexico and the Guyana. The study concentrates on four species (Artibeus lituratus, Carollia perspicillata, Sturnira lilium and Glossophaga soricina) which were well represented. The other 13 species were sequenced to test the generality of the patterns observed. In general, sequence divergence values within species were low, with most bat species presenting less than 4% average sequence divergence, and usually between 1 and 2.5%. Clades of highly similar haplotypes enjoyed broad distribution on a continental scale. These clades were not usually geographically structured, and at a given locality the number of haplotypes was high (8-10). As distance increased, some moderately divergent clades were found, although the levels of divergence were low. This suggests a geographical effect that varied depending on species and scale. Small nonvolant mammals almost invariably have high levels of sequence divergence (> 10%) for cytochrome b over much shorter distances (< 1000 km). The grain of intraspecific variation found in small nonvolant mammals is much finer than in bats. Low levels of geographical structuring cannot be attributed to a slower evolutionary rate of bat DNA in relation to other mammalian taxa. The phylogeographic pattern of bats contrasts sharply with the pattern found for Neotropical rodents and marsupials.

Desmodus rotundus (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae; Desmodontinae) is the most common vampire bat and has a broad distribution, ranging from southern Mexico to central Chile in the west, and Paraguay and northern Argentina in the east of South America (Koopman 1988). Because of its feeding habit, this bat is considered the main source of rabies transmission to cattle. Although this species has a large spectrum of morphological variability throughout its range, thus far no study has examined the distribution of genetic lineages over its geographic range. Four geographically circumscribed clades ofD. rotundus were described in the Brazilian territory on the basis of mitochondrial sequence analyses: southern Atlantic forest (SAF), northern Atlantic forest (NAF), Pantanal (PAN) and Amazon plus Cerrado (AMC) clade. The differentiation among these clades is strongly supported statistically, although the phylogenetic relationship between them remains uncertain. The extremely high levels of sequence divergence that were found between clades (ranging from 6% to 11%) are the highest ever described for a Neotropical bat species and cannot be explained by female philopatry alone. This indicates that D. rotundus comprises two or more distinct, possibly cryptic species. The biogeographic pattern described for this bat is similar to those described for other bats and terrestrial mammals, suggesting geographical congruence between historical vicariant processes, including likely vicariant events between north and south Atlantic Forest and between the Atlantic Forest and the Amazon.

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The effects of urbanization on bats are poorly understood, but published data suggests it might be detrimental to them. Even though urban parks provide refuge to native biota, the nature of the urban landscape exacerbates the insularization process. In order to evaluate if wooded streets in an urban landscape provide connectivity for bats, we compared bat community structure in three different types of habitats: urban parks, wooded streets and non-wooded streets. Sampling occurred monthly from August 2006 to July 2007 in the city of Vitória, southeastern Brazil. Richness, relative abundance and diversity were higher in urban parks and lower in non-wooded streets. Jaccard's similarity index showed that the wooded streets are more similar to non-wooded streets than to urban parks. Urbanization may benefit generalist species by providing new resources, but for specialist species critical resources may be lost and persistence endangered. There is evidence that wooded streets may provide some degree of connectivity for birds in urban landscapes, but our results suggest that this is not the case, with wooded streets being used by few individuals of a few species. Vegetation cover is important to maintain bat diversity in urban centers. Activities like landscape planning and gardening should include biodiversity data in their outputs in order to better design a landscape that improves the likelihood of persistence of bats.