Mammals in a fragmented savannah landscape in south-western Brazil

Seasonally flooded stepping stones: emerging diversity of small mammal assemblage in the Amazonia-Cerrado ecotone, central Brazil

“…Such species are presumably less selective and adapted to more disturbed habitats (Marinho-Filho et al 2008;Percequillo et al 2008). However, H. megacephalus has more frequently been captured in the Araguaia gallery forests (Bezerra et al 2009;Rocha et al 2011), which is concordant with the results of Cáceres et al (2010). These authors also found a different community of small mammals in gallery forests than that occurring in the fragmented landscape of the Cerrado.…”

“…This pattern was also reported by BarrosBattesti et al (2000) in isolated remnants of Atlantic Forest. On the other hand, Cáceres et al (2010) argued that marsupials sometimes dominated in abundance or richness in the smaller fragments of woodland and gallery forests in Cerrado, G. agilis being one of the species that contribute to this dominance Napoli and Cáceres 2012). Although G. agilis is an arboreal species, like several other didelphid species (Emmons and Feer 1997), its small size and its broad habitat tolerance make it more adapted to fragmented habitats, such as ipucas.…”

“…Several studies have been conducted to understand the impact of fragmentation on small mammal communities in Cerrado (e.g. Bonvicino et al 2002;Cáceres et al 2010;Gheler-Costa et al 2012;Napoli and Cáceres 2012), but ecological studies focusing on this group in natural forest fragments, or ipucas, in the Araguaia alluvial plain are lacking. This is still more relevant given the importance of this region, since it was considered a priority area for conservation of the Cerrado biodiversity (e.g.…”

Mammalia, Estação Ecológica do Panga, a Cerrado protected area in Minas Gerais state, Brazil

“…Though making direct comparisons of abundance is complicated by the influence of fire history and habitat structural diversity on cerrado mammal abundance (Vieira and Marinho-Filho 1998;Henriques et al 2000), the fact that our capture rates were comparable or slightly lower than those from other mammals surveys conducted in the Cerrado (Alho 1981;Alho et al 1986;Vieira 1999;Caceres et al 2010) suggests this is true in our field site as well. Furthermore, our survey provides additional support for the hypothesis that many of the Cerrado's mammal species may be able to persist in landscapes that are a mosaic of natural areas and agriculture (Trolle et al 2007;Lyra-Jorge et al 2008;Caceres et al 2010). Indeed, it is notable that in this single protected area we recorded approximately 18 % of the Cerrado's mammal species (Marinho-Filho et al 2002), including the Maned Wolf (Chrysocyon brachyrus), Giant Anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla), and other iconic species that are flagships for Cerrado conservation (Figure 3).…”

Mammal occurrence and roadkill in two adjacent ecoregions (Atlantic Forest and Cerrado) in south-western Brazil

“…In fact, the higher rates of mammals killed on BR 487 (more than 100 indiv/50 km/year) in the Atlantic ecoregion are likely a result of recent (2002) asphalt paving (see MELO & SANTOS-FILHO 2007 for a similar result). With a lower MDV, the Cerrado ecoregion revealed a richer fauna in terms of both frequencies in natural habitats and roadkills, reflecting the good conservation status of this southwestern savanna formation (see CÁCERES et al 2010). The number of threatened species is also an important record for this ecoregion, which shows that this ecoregion still safeguards a number of species regionally.…”