Effects of human traffic on use of trails by mammals in lowland forest of eastern Ecuador

Abstract

Human activity can lead to changes in animal behavior and distribution patterns if the level of activity is high enough to cause disturbance. Both humans and other animals commonly use human-made trails in lowland tropical forest and, therefore, it is possible that use of trails by humans might affect the likelihood that animals would use those same trails. We investigated this possibility at a site in lowland forest of eastern Ecuador using camera traps to document numbers of people and numbers of other animals at a series of camera locations during January-March, 2014-2016. Human activity was higher on trails used by all visitors to the research station than on two research plots where human activity is restricted. Ungulates were the only group to show a strong negative relationship with human activity but only on trails open to all visitors; there was no apparent negative impact of human activity on research plots. Results suggest that the level of human activity along trails is not now causing negative impacts to most mammals but also that levels of activity should be monitored to ensure that any increase in human presence does not lead to negative responses by mammals.

Forest complexity drives dung beetle assemblages along an edge‐interior gradient in the southwest Amazon rainforest

“…In addition to the microclimatic differences found along the edge-interior gradient in tropical forests, where air humidity decreases and temperature increases near forest edges (Feer, 2008;Laurance et al, 2011), there are expected changes in resource availability provided by medium and large-sized mammals to dung beetles because edge-related effects also affect mammalian distribution (Brodie et al, 2015). Some mammals can use man-made forest trails (Harmsen et al, 2010), such as roads and some clearings, whereas several mammalian species will avoid them and will resign more to the core forest habitats (Blake et al, 2017). Therefore, a synergistic negative effect on conditions and resources in forest edges is expected to drive dung beetle distribution in these habitats.…”

An island of wildlife in a human-dominated landscape: The last fragment of primary forest on the Osa Peninsula’s Golfo Dulce coastline, Costa Rica

“…An elapse of 30 minutes between consecutive photographs of the same species was determined to be an independent species event. In this way, each species is considered once regardless of the number of images taken within 30 minutes [ 40 ]. We recorded the date, time, and GPS coordinates for each event, while also identifying the species and noting the number of individuals at each event.…”

“…We recorded the date, time, and GPS coordinates for each event, while also identifying the species and noting the number of individuals at each event. Abundance was measured using the Species-specific Relative Abundance Index (RAI) [ 40 , 41 ]. The RAI was calculated by dividing the number of species events per site by the camera trap days per each site and then multiplying by 100, resulting in the standardized measure, number of events per 100 camera trapping days per site.…”

Wildlife Diversity and Relative Abundance Among a Variety of Adjacent Protected Areas in the Northern Talamanca Mountains of Costa Rica

“…We placed cameras (Bushnell Trophy Cam ® ) on two different trail types to maximize the trap success because wildlife is known to use both types [30,31]. Human trails were trails regularly used by tourists, researchers, rangers, and local people and were 2-3 m in width.…”