Amazonia forest plays a major role in providing ecosystem services for human and sanctuaries for wildlife. However, ongoing deforestation and habitat fragmentation in the Brazilian Amazon has threatened both. The ocelot is an ecologically important mesopredator and a potential conservation ambassador species, yet there are no previous studies on its habitat preference and spatial patterns in this biome. From 2010 to 2017, twelve sites were surveyed, totaling 899 camera trap stations, the largest known dataset for this species. Using occupancy modeling incorporating spatial autocorrelation, we assessed habitat use for ocelot populations across the Brazilian Amazon. Our results revealed a positive sigmoidal correlation between remote‐sensing derived metrics of forest cover, disjunct core area density, elevation, distance to roads, distance to settlements and habitat use, and that habitat use by ocelots was negatively associated with slope and distance to river/lake. These findings shed light on the regional scale habitat use of ocelots and indicate important species–habitat relationships, thus providing valuable information for conservation management and land‐use planning.

The degree to which terrestrial vertebrate populations are depleted in tropical forests occupied by human communities has been the subject of an intense polarising debate that has important conservation implications. Conservation ecologists and practitioners are divided over the extent to which community-based subsistence offtake is compatible with ecologically functional populations of tropical forest game species. To quantify depletion envelopes of forest vertebrates around human communities, we deployed a total of 383 camera trap stations and 78 quantitative interviews to survey the peri-community areas controlled by 60 semi-subsistence communities over a combined area of over 3.2 million hectares in the Mé dio Juruá and Uatumã regions of Central-Western Brazilian Amazonia. Our results largely conform with prior evidence that hunting large-bodied vertebrates reduces wildlife populations near settlements, such that they are only found at a distance to settlements where they are hunted less frequently. Camera trap data suggest that a select few harvestsensitive species, including lowland tapir, are either repelled or depleted by human communities. Nocturnal and cathemeral species were detected relatively more frequently in disturbed areas close to communities, but individual species did not necessarily shift their activity patterns. Group biomass of all species was depressed in the wider neighbourhood of urban areas rather than communities. Interview data suggest that species traits, especially group size and body mass, mediate these relationships. Large-bodied, large-group-living species are detected farther from communities as reported by experienced informants. Long-established communities in our study regions have not "emptied" the surrounding forest. Low human population density and low hunting offtake due to abundant sources of alternative aquatic protein, suggest that these communities represent a best-case scenario for sustainable hunting of wildlife for food, thereby providing a conservative assessment of game depletion. Given this 'best-case' camera trap and interview-based evidence for hunting depletion, regions with higher human population densities, external trade in wildlife and limited access to alternative protein will likely exhibit more severe depletion.

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The flood pulse is the main factor structuring and differentiating the ecological communities of Amazonian unflooded (terra firme) and seasonally-flooded (várzea) forests as they require unique adaptations to survive the prolonged annual floods. Therefore, várzea and terra firme forests hammer out a spatio-temporal mosaic of resource availability, which may result in landscape scale seasonal movements of terrestrial vertebrates between adjacent forest types. Yet the lateral movements of terrestrial vertebrates between hydrologically distinct neighbouring forest types exhibiting staggered resource availability remains poorly understood, despite the important implications of this spatial dynamic for the ecology and conservation of forest wildlife. We examined the hypothesis of terrestrial fauna seasonal movements between two adjacent forest types at two contiguous sustainable-use forest reserves in Western Brazilian Amazonia. We used camera trapping data on the overall species richness, composition, and abundance of nine major vertebrate trophic guilds to infer on terrestrial vertebrate movements as a function of seasonal changes in floodplain water level. Species richness differed in neighboring terra firme forests between the high-and low-water phases of the flood pulse and terra firme forests were more species rich than várzea forests. There were clear differences in species composition between both forest types and seasons. Generalized Linear Models showed that water level was the main factor explaining aggregate abundance of all species and three trophic guilds. Our results indicate that the persistence of viable populations of large terrestrial vertebrates adjacent to major Amazonian rivers requires large, well-connected forest landscapes encompassing different forest types to ensure large-scale lateral movements by forest wildlife.

Tropical biodiversity benefits humanity. However, the costs of conserving topical biodiversity are largely borne by local communities. The damage caused by wild animals to human-cultivated plants (crop-raiding) in tropical ecosystems directly affects the livelihoods of local agriculturalists, which erodes their support for conserving biodiversity. We used data collected between 2013 and 2015 from 132 cameratrap stations and responses from 157 interviewees representing 47 semi-subsistence communities to quantify and contextualize terrestrial vertebrate crop-raiding damage to manioc (Manihot esculenta) agricultural fields (i.e., roS cados) in the M edio-Juru a region of western Brazilian Amazonia. The 5 vertebrate species identified by respondents as the most damaging crop raiders were agoutis (Dasyprocta fuliginosa), collared peccaries (Pecari tajacu), pacas (Cuniculus paca), red brocket deer (Mazama americana), and spiny rats (family Echimyidae). These species were frequently detected by camera traps in early-successional forests. Respondents reported mean manioc stem losses to crop raiders of 7.3%/roS cado. Proportional losses of more palatable manioc varieties were approximately 3 times higher than more phytochemically defended varieties, further constraining crop choice. Respondents estimated that in the absence of active crop-raider suppression, overall losses would have been 73.9%/respondent/annum, and therefore invested substantial effort in crop protection. Small communities, already economically disadvantaged by isolation from the material, service, and information monopoly of urban centers, were most affected by crop raiding. Although, the most damaging crop raiders are ideal candidates for sustainable subsistence hunting, we found only weak evidence of positive opportunities for agriculturalists to hunt crop raiders to compensate for crop losses. Our study indicated that crop raiding may continue to exacerbate the challenges inherent in tropical agriculture and represents a significant forest ecosystem disservice. Ó

The persistent high deforestation rate and fragmentation of the Amazon forests are the main threats to their biodiversity. To anticipate and mitigate these threats, it is important to understand and predict how species respond to the rapidly changing landscape. The short-eared dog Atelocynus microtis is the only Amazon-endemic canid and one of the most understudied wild dogs worldwide. We investigated short-eared dog habitat associations on two spatial scales. First, we used the largest record database ever compiled for short-eared dogs in combination with species distribution models to map species habitat suitability, estimate its distribution range and predict shifts in species distribution in response to predicted deforestation across the entire Amazon (regional scale). Second, we used systematic camera trap surveys and occupancy models to investigate how forest cover and forest fragmentation affect the space use of this species in the Southern Brazilian Amazon (local scale). Species distribution models suggested that the short-eared dog potentially occurs over an extensive and continuous area, through most of the Amazon region south of the Amazon River. However, approximately 30% of the short-eared dog's current distribution is expected to be lost or suffer sharp declines in habitat suitability by 2027 (within three generations) due to forest loss. This proportion might reach 40% of the species distribution in unprotected areas and exceed 60% in some interfluves (i.e. portions of land separated by large rivers) of the Amazon basin. Our local-scale analysis indicated that the presence of forest positively affected short-eared dog space use, while the density of forest edges had a negative effect. Beyond shedding light on the ecology of the short-eared dog and refining its distribution range, our results stress that forest loss poses a serious threat to the conservation of the species in a short time frame. Hence, we propose a re-assessment of the short-eared dog's current IUCN Red List status (Near Threatened) based on findings presented here. Our study exemplifies how data can be integrated across sources and modelling procedures to improve our knowledge of relatively understudied species.

Based on freshly collected and recorded topotypes, we re-describe Leptodactylus jolyi and describe a closely related new species from the municipality of Uberlândia (MG, Brazil). As some other species of the L. fuscus group, the new species present longitudinal skin folds on dorsal surface of shank. Leptodactylus marambaiae is a shorte-legged species, in L. jolyi the shank reaches 61–65% of the SVL, and 62–68 % in the new species. Males L. jolyi are larger (45 mm SVL) than those of L. gracilis (38.5 mm), than those of L. plaumanni (31–35 mm), and are smaller and more slender than those of the new species (48.3–53.9). In L. jolyi and in the new species the vomerine teeth are in two straight transverse series, in L. gracilis each is a distinct arch. Leptodactylus plaumanni has a fast call rate (13–23/s), in L. gracilis it is 2.5–4/s, in L. jolyi it is just about 0.1–0.3/s and in the new species calls are emitted irregularly (0.02–0.3/s). Leptodactylus jolyi call is composed by 1–3 pulses, while the new species has a single or double-pulsed call; the call also is 25-100% longer in L. jolyi (mode 0.04 s, our sample) than in the new species (mode 0.02 s). We predict that populations in the Cerrado now identified as L. jolyi will turn out to be conspecific with the new species described herein. In the original description the call of L. jolyi is two times longer than that we described here based on topotypes. A possible mistake in time scale in the original description may account for this difference.

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