Mamíferos da Fazenda Nhumirim, sub-região de Nhecolândia, Pantanal do Mato Grosso do Sul: I - levantamento preliminar de espécies

Abstract

<abstract language="eng">The pantanal is one of the world's richest freshwater wetlands. The pantanal is located in the flood plain of the headwaters of the Paraguai river, covering 140,000km². The habitats of the Pantanal are present in a complex mosaic. The major habitat types are: pockets of forests, called capão or cordilheira, seasonally flooded grasslands or campos, and permanent or temporary lagoons, called baías. The Pantanal harbors both rich and abundant mammal fauna. A survey was conducted at Fazenda Nhumirim, a research station run by the Centro de Pesquisa Agropecuária do Pantanal (CPAP) in Corumbá, a research branch of EMBRAPA. The Fazenda covers an area of 4,310 ha in the sub-region of Nhecolândia, appoximately 150km east of Corumbá, Mato Grosso do Sul. The area receives an average annual rainfall of 1,022mm, and has a mean monthly temperature that varies between 29.1ºC (January) and 22.0ºC (June). Four routes were followed between two times during ten days of each month. The survey routes were covered on horseback by between two and four observers. Each route was followed and equal number of times in the morning and in the afternoon, to eliminate bias related to the activity patterns of mammals. In order to evaluate relative abundance of nocturnal species, we also conducted a number of nocturnal censuses. These censuses were done by car; a high intensity searchlight was used to spot the animals. We also conducted a trap-mark-recapture survey of the small mammals at Fazenda Nhumirim. After the census period, we continued to collect observations on the occurrence of mammals at the Fazenda, noting wherever possible the kind of habitat in which the animals were observed. The survey identified a diversity of mammals at Fazenda Nhumirim: six orders, 14 families, 19 genera, and 20 species. Nasua nasua was the most frequently observed species during the diurnal census, accounting for 61.5 percent of all observations. Dusicyon (formely Cerdocyon) thous was the most frequently observed species on the nocturnal census (39.13%). The small mammal community of Fazenda Nhumirim is composed of seven species: one marsupial, four cricetine rodents and two echimyid rodents

Molecular detection of Ehrlichia canisin dogs from the Pantanal of Mato Grosso State, Brazil

“…Some studies emphasized the possibility that Ehrlichia species other than E. canis are circulating in Brazil, especially in the Pantanal area, a large periodically wetland area of Brazil that harbors high diversity of mammals and ticks (ALHO et al, 1987;BECHARA et al, 2000). Melo et al (2011) reported high prevalence of anti-Ehrlichia antibodies in domestic dogs from the municipality of Poconé, a northern sub-region of Pantanal.…”

Terrestrial and aquatic mammals of the Pantanal

“…The observed abundance of some species in the Pantanal habitats reveals that only a few species are common -for example the capybara Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris, the crab-eating fox Cerdocyon thous, and the flat-faced fruit-eating bat Artibeus planirostris -whereas some are rare or intrinsically rare -for example, the bush dog Speothos venaticus (Alho et al, 1988Mamede and Alho, 2006;Alho, 2005aAlho, , 2008Teixeira et al, 2009). pasture of the seasonal flooding open fields.…”

“…The high heterogeneity of the Pantanal promotes the selection of different habitats by species which widely overlap in habitat use. The Pantanal community compositions are subject to an annual hydrological cycle which determines the ecosystem functioning and the high seasonal productivity, supporting a diverse and abundant fauna, including large and endangered mammal species (Alho et al, 1988;Alho, 2005aAlho, , 2008. These factors have influenced diversity throughout life history and nowadays also influence the presence of species competing for daily needs to survive and reproduce.…”

“…Several surveys on a different time scale have shown the great magnitude of the mammalian fauna of the Pantanal: on mammalian biomass (Schaller, 1983), on occurrence of species (Alho et al, 1988;Trolle, 2003), of a literature review (Coutinho et al, 1997;Rodrigues et al, 2002), on working group results (Marinho Filho, 2007), on responses to seasonal flooding (Mamede and Alho, 2006), on microhabitat use among small mammals (Lacher and Alho, 1989), on ecology (Alho, 2005a(Alho, , 2008, and studies on single species such as capybaras Alho, 2003), jaguar (Soisalo and Cavalcanti, 2006;Azevedo and Murray, 2007), march deer (Schaller and Vasconcelos, 1978;Mauro et al, 1998;Mourão et al, 2000), ocelot (Trolle and Kéry, 2005), and other studies.…”

“…The landscape has been modified by human intervention, mainly deforestation, unsustainable agricultural and cattle-ranching practices, which convert the natural vegetation into pastures (Alho et al, 1988;Alho, 2005aAlho, , 2008Harris et al, 2005). Therefore, some natural habitats are in distress.…”