No abstract

a b s t r a c tWe present the first quantitative description of postural behaviour of a free ranging metatherian, the bare-tailed woolly opossum, Caluromys philander. Postural behaviour was observed using 10 camera traps set in front of artificial nests, located in the understory of an Atlantic forest site in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Seven locomotory and positional modes were identified, with a predominance of diagonal couplets. Individuals used three types of grasp as observed in captivity, but the frequency of digital grasping was higher in the wild. The tail was used as an additional grasping limb, preventing falls and freeing hands to other activities, but the tail was also used to carry leaves for nest building. The use of camera traps may represent a breakthrough in the study of positional behaviours in the wild.

No abstract

Novos métodos vêm sendo desenvolvidos para o estudo da estratificação vertical dos pequenos mamíferos neotropicais, como alternativas aos métodos convencionais que usam armadilhas de captura de animais vivos. Nesta revisão descrevemos três métodos alternativos para estudar a estratificação vertical dos marsupiais didelfídeos nas florestas tropicais: testes de desempenho em uma abordagem ecomorfológica, carretel de rastreamento e ninhos artificiais. O histórico de uso de cada um é revisto, discutindo suas vantagens e desvantagens, e apresentando exemplos de resultados inéditos obtidos através de seu uso. Testes de hipóteses mais acurados sobre estruturação de comunidades locais e questões relacionadas à demografia de populações podem ser obtidos com a combinação destes novos métodos com métodos convencionais, que se complementem, minimizando suas deficiências.

Mammalian carnivores are considered a key group in maintaining ecological health and can indicate potential ecological integrity in landscapes where they occur. Carnivores also hold high conservation value and their habitat requirements can guide management and conservation plans. The order Carnivora has 84 species from 8 families in the Neotropical region: Canidae; Felidae; Mephitidae; Mustelidae; Otariidae; Phocidae; Procyonidae; and Ursidae. Herein, we include published and unpublished data on native terrestrial Neotropical carnivores (Canidae; Felidae; Mephitidae; Mustelidae; Procyonidae; and Ursidae). NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES is a publicly available data set that includes 99,605 data entries from 35,511 unique georeferenced coordinates. Detection/non‐detection and quantitative data were obtained from 1818 to 2018 by researchers, governmental agencies, non‐governmental organizations, and private consultants. Data were collected using several methods including camera trapping, museum collections, roadkill, line transect, and opportunistic records. Literature (peer‐reviewed and grey literature) from Portuguese, Spanish and English were incorporated in this compilation. Most of the data set consists of detection data entries (n = 79,343; 79.7%) but also includes non‐detection data (n = 20,262; 20.3%). Of those, 43.3% also include count data (n = 43,151). The information available in NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES will contribute to macroecological, ecological, and conservation questions in multiple spatio‐temporal perspectives. As carnivores play key roles in trophic interactions, a better understanding of their distribution and habitat requirements are essential to establish conservation management plans and safeguard the future ecological health of Neotropical ecosystems. Our data paper, combined with other large‐scale data sets, has great potential to clarify species distribution and related ecological processes within the Neotropics. There are no copyright restrictions and no restriction for using data from this data paper, as long as the data paper is cited as the source of the information used. We also request that users inform us of how they intend to use the data.