All known species of extant tapirs are allopatric: 1 in southeastern Asia and 3 in Central and South America. The fossil record for tapirs, however, is much wider in geographical range, including Europe, Asia, and North and South America, going back to the late Oligocene, making the present distribution a relict of the original one. We here describe a new species of living Tapirus from the Amazon rain forest, the 1st since T. bairdii Gill, 1865, and the 1st new Perissodactyla in more than 100 years, from both morphological and molecular characters. It is shorter in stature than T. terrestris (Linnaeus, 1758) and has distinctive skull morphology, and it is basal to the clade formed by T. terrestris and T. pinchaque (Roulin, 1829). This highlights the unrecognized biodiversity in western Amazonia, where the biota faces increasing threats. Local peoples have long recognized our new species, suggesting a key role for traditional knowledge in understanding the biodiversity of the region.

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.

Selective logging is the most extensive land use threatening tropical forests worldwide, making our understanding of its impacts on biodiversity vital for the conservation of these hyperdiverse ecosystems. We investigated the effects of selective logging on the phylogenetic and functional diversity (FD) of Amazonian forest avifauna. We sampled the overall and the understorey bird community using point counts and mist-netting, respectively, in logged and unlogged forests. The overall bird community showed significantly lower phylogenetic diversity (PD) and FD in logged than unlogged forests, but significantly higher standard effect size (ses) of PD, ses mean pairwise distance (MPD), mean nearest taxon distance (MNTD), ses functional MPD (sesfMPD) and functional MNTD (fMNTD) in logged sites. Evolutionary distinctiveness, sesMPD, sesFD, fMNTD and sesfMNTD of understorey birds were significantly higher in logged forests. Higher logging intensity affected some metrics negatively and others positively, although the relatively small changes in phylogenetic and FD suggest limited overall effects from logging at lower intensity. In combination, selective logging brings deleterious effects for some components of phylogenetic and FD of the overall Amazonian bird community. Nonetheless, selectively logged forests retain important avian diversity, underscoring their high conservation value. Relatively, low impacts of selective logging may be due to the reduced-impact logging (RIL) techniques used, high connectivity with well-preserved unlogged forests or focus on short-term logging impacts. Because even low-intensity RIL causes some losses in evolutionary history and functional traits, an optimal approach for conserving phylogenetic and FD requires incorporating some land-sparing logging to protect more old-growth patches within the logged matrix. Animal Conservation.

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