Protected areas in tropical countries are managed under different governance regimes, the relative effectiveness of which in avoiding deforestation has been the subject of recent debates. Participants in these debates answer appeals for more strict protection with the argument that sustainable use areas and indigenous lands can balance deforestation pressures by leveraging local support to create and enforce protective regulations. Which protection strategy is more effective can also depend on (i) the level of deforestation pressures to which an area is exposed and (ii) the intensity of government enforcement. We examine this relationship empirically, using data from 292 protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon. We show that, for any given level of deforestation pressure, strictly protected areas consistently avoided more deforestation than sustainable use areas. Indigenous lands were particularly effective at avoiding deforestation in locations with high deforestation pressure. Findings were stable across two time periods featuring major shifts in the intensity of government enforcement. We also observed shifting trends in the location of protected areas, documenting that between 2000 and 2005 strictly protected areas were more likely to be established in high-pressure locations than in sustainable use areas and indigenous lands. Our findings confirm that all protection regimes helped reduce deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.

The dominant models explaining tree species diversity and distribution patterns in tropical forests are the Janzen-Connell and Recruitment Limitation models, neither of which considers the effect of long-distance seed dispersal on seed survival, seedling establishment, or the aggregated distributions of trees empirically observed at mesoscales in tropical forests. At a neotropical forest site (Maracá Island Ecological Reserve, Roraima, Brazil), we experimentally reproduced long-distance clumped seed dispersal by tapirs for the palm Maximiliana maripa. Such dispersal protects seeds from attack by species-specific bruchid beetles by (1) covering them in protective fecal material and (2) placing them in sites distant from conspecific adult tree aggregations, where beetles are less active. Endocarps distant from parent patches survived bruchid attack at a significantly higher rate than those in parent patches, as did in-feces endocarps compared to clean endocarps. A significant interaction effect between distance from patches and feces treatment showed that feces conferred protection to seeds within a parent patch but did not appear to confer additional protection to seeds already protected by distance from the parent patch. A mesoscale map compiled from aerial photography, satellite imagery, and air-and groundtruthing revealed an aggregated pattern of M. maripa palms associated with tapir latrine sites, supporting the view that long-distance seed dispersal by tapirs is responsible for the generation of palm patches and potentially important in forest-savanna boundary dynamics. We conclude that seed shadows and survival rates can justifiably be studied at the scale of tree aggregations rather than at the scale of individual trees, and that long-distance seed dispersal is neither rare nor unpredictable once we understand the movements and behavior of large, mobile animals.

We radio‐tracked five red‐rumped agoutis (Dasyprocta leporina) for two to nine months each at the Estacao Ecologica Ilha de Maraca in the northern Brazilian Amazon. Agoutis fed primarily on seeds and pulp but also ate cotyledons, leaves, flowers, and invertebrates. Three plant species made up 63 percent of the feeding observations. Home range size varied from 3 to 8.5 ha. High‐use areas and home range boundaries shifted from the season of high fruit availability to the season of low fruit availability as different individual trees became the focus of feeding activities. Agoutis foraged preferentially within conspecific patches of preferred fruit species and concentrated their feeding and scatterhoarding activities near individual fruiting trees. These results suggest that agoutis, as extremely short‐distance seed dispersers, may contribute to the aggregated dispersion pattern of large‐seeded tropical forest trees. RESUMO Nós seguimos cinco cutias‐vermhelhas (Dasyprocta leporina) marcados com tele‐transmissores por dois á nove mȩses cada um na Estação Ecologica Ilha de Maracá, localizada no no̧rte da Amazonia Brasileira. Os principals itens da dieta foram sementes e polpa de frutos, mas as cutias também consumiram cotiledones, folhas e invertebrados. Trȩs espécies de plantas foram responsáveis por 63 porcento das observanções de dieta. O tamanho da área de vida variou entre 3 e 8.5 ha. As áreas mais usadas e as bordas da área de vida variaram de acordo com as estações de maior e menor disponibilidade de frutos porque diferentes árvores foram procuradas em diferentes estações. As cutias preferiram forragear nas áreas onde as espécies de sementes preferidas eram mais abundantes, e concentraram a alimentação e atividades de armazenamento nas regiões próximas as árvores frutíferas. Estes resultados sugerem que o papel das cutias como dispersores de sementes de curta dista̧ncia podem contribuir para a dispersão agregada de árvores tropicais com sementes grandes.

Conservation of Neotropical game species must take into account the livelihood and food security needs of local human populations. Hunting management decisions should therefore rely on abundance and distribution data that are as representative as possible of true population sizes and dynamics. We simultaneously applied a commonly used encounter-based method and an infrequently used sign-based method to estimate hunted vertebrate abundance in a 48,000-km2 indigenous landscape in southern Guyana. Diurnal direct encounter data collected during three years along 216, four-kilometer -long transects consistently under-detected many diurnal and nocturnal mammal species readily detected through sign. Of 32 species analyzed, 31 were detected by both methods; however, encounters did not detect one and under-detected another 12 of the most heavily hunted species relative to sign, while sign under-detected 12 never or rarely collected species relative to encounters. The six most important game animals in the region, all ungulates, were not encountered at 11–40% of village and control sites or on 29–72% of transects where they were detected by sign. Using the sign methodology, we find that tapirs, one of the terrestrial vertebrates considered most sensitive to overexploitation, are present at many sites where they were never visually detected during distance sampling. We find that this is true for many other species as well. These high rates of under-detection suggest that behavioral changes in hunted populations may affect apparent occurrence and abundance of these populations. Accumulation curves (detection of species on transects) were much steeper for sign for 12 of 16 hunted species than for encounters, but that pattern was reversed for 12 of 16 species unhunted in our area. We conclude that collection of sign data is an efficient and effective method of monitoring hunted vertebrate populations that complements encounter and camera-trapping methods in areas impacted by hunting. Sign surveys may be the most viable method for large-scale, management-oriented studies in remote areas, particularly those focused on community-based wildlife management.