Activity Patterns of American Marsupials

Does Moonlight Suppress or Stimulate Activity of a Tropical Forest Small Mammal

“…Moonlight can have profound influence on the activity patterns of nocturnal species (Prugh & Golden 2014). Species may respond to variation in moon phases by increasing (lunarphilia) or decreasing (lunarphobia) activity (Prugh & Golden 2014, Ferreira 2022. The lunarphobic behaviour is usually associated to a suppression in activity in bright moon nights to avoid predators, since predators would become more efficient under these conditions, while the lunarphilic behavior is associated with an increase in activity to improve foraging efficiency of both predators and preys (Prugh & Golden 2014).…”

“…Some bats, for example, have their activity inhibited both under natural (Crespo 1972) and laboratory conditions (Haeussler & Erkert 1978), while other nocturnal mammals that detect prey visually will find prey more frequently as luminosity increases (Prugh & Golden 2014). In addition to bats, moonlight also influences the activity pattern of other nocturnal mammals, such as marsupials, rodents, and lagomorphs (Prugh & Golden 2014, Ferreira 2022 Three potential hypotheses were proposed by Prugh & Golden (2014) underlying the effects of moonlight on the activity patterns of nocturnal mammals. The predation risk hypothesis states that if predators are more effective in capturing preys in bright moon nights, preys would respond by shifting their activity to evade predation.…”

“…Neotropical marsupials can act as both predators and prey (Lessa & Geise 2010, Huck et al 2016, Pratas-Santiago et al 2016 and, therefore, show different responses to bright moon nights (Ferreira 2022). While the white-eared opossum Didelphis albiventris decreased activity in periods of low luminosity in the piedmont forest of the Yungas, northwestern Argentina (Albanesi et al 2016), another population of D. albiventris behaved in the opposite direction, increasing activity in a Humid Chaco region, in the north part of the country (Huck et al 2016).…”

SELEÇÃO DE LOCAIS DE ABRIGO POR Caluromys philander (DIDELPHIMORPHIA, DIDELPHIDAE), UTILIZANDO NINHOS ARTIFICIAIS, EM ÁREA DE MATA ATLÂNTICA, GUAPIMIRIM, RJ, BRASIL

“…O hábito noturno e arborícola de muitos marsupiais neotropicais dificulta o estudo de seu comportamento in loco, pois esses hábitos os torna de difícil observação e captura em armadilhas tradicionais para pequenos mamíferos , Ferreira 2022. Apesar da utilização recorrente e testes metodológicos específicos sobre a eficiência destas armadilhas (Malcolm 1991, Vieira et al 2004, seu sucesso em estudos com animais arborícolas ainda é limitado, mesmo quando colocados em plataformas nos estratos mais altos das florestas (Macedo et al 2007) porque o sucesso amostral é mais baixo que para as mesmas armadilhas colocadas no solo (Loretto 2012).…”