1. Dispersal limitation severely impairs the trajectory of restoration, mainly due to the lack of seed vectors bringing seeds from nearby habitats; a role played by many frugivorous vertebrates that can be absent or reduced in restored or degraded sites. 2. Here we propose a new technique named Induced Seed Dispersal, that amplifies the role that many generalist frugivores have in seed dispersal. It consists in the offering of seeds embedded in the pulp of commercial fruits or whole native fleshy fruits in feeders to generalist frugivores, which ingest the seeds and defecate them elsewhere. We set feeders in a restored site and monitored the visiting pattern of these frugivores with cameras-traps. We also set seed traps to retrieve seeds dispersed by frugivores and offered around 1,500 seeds of Cecropia hololeuca (Urticaceae) per week for 1 year. 3. We recorded at least 24 generalist frugivore species of terrestrial mammals, bats and birds, which ingested/removed the seeds/fruits from the feeders. Seeds of C. hololeuca dispersed by marmosets were retrieved in the seed traps and germinated. We estimated a potential seed rain of more than 600 C. hololeuca seeds ha −1 mo −1. 4. Synthesis and applications. Our study demonstrates that this new technique can make use of generalist frugivores to assist restoration or regeneration into sites where seed dispersal is compromised by the lack of dispersers or limited seed arrival. Inducing seed dispersal by generalist frugivores is a low-cost and easymanaged technique that can be applied year-round in restoration and forest enrichments at all scales.

Anthropocentric defaunation affects critical ecological processes, such as seed dispersal, putting ecosystems and biomes at risk, and leading to habitat impoverishment. Diverse restoration techniques could reverse the process of habitat impoverishment. However, in most of the restoration efforts, only vegetation cover is targeted. Fauna and flora are treated as isolated components, neglecting a key component of ecosystems' functioning, the ecological interactions. We tested whether the resilient frugivorous generalist fauna can improve habitat quality by dispersing native plant species through the use of fruit feeders as in a semideciduous seasonal urban forest fragment. A total of 32 sampling points was selected at a heavily degraded 251-ha urban forest fragment, with feeders installed at two heights monitored by camera-traps. Variable quantities of native fruits of 27 zoochorous species were offered alternately in the feeders. Based on more than 36,000 h of video records, Turdus leucomelas (Class Aves), Sapajus nigritus (Class Mammalia), and Salvator merianae (Class Reptilia) were recorded ingesting the highest fruit species richness. Didelphis albiventris (Class Mammalia) was the most frequent visitor but consumed only pulp in most of the visits. The frugivorous birds were recorded at a high visitation rate and consumed a wider variety of fruits. Our study opens a new avenue to combine the traditional approach of ecosystems recovery and ecological interactions restauration in an urban forest fragment.

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.