More trees with your coffee? Diversity and habitat associations of terrestrial medium- and large-sized mammals in shade-grown coffee plantations of the highlands of Guatemala

Abstract

Agricultural practices can have detrimental impacts on biodiversity, but some studies have shown the benefits of agroforestry practices like shade-grown coffee to bird communities and, to a lesser extent, to mammal communities. To better understand whether shade-grown coffee plantations can contribute to the conservation of mammal communities, we deployed camera traps in private reserves with a matrix of shade-grown coffee plantations and forest in the highlands of Guatemala. At each reserve we estimated species richness of terrestrial medium- and large-sized mammals. We also estimated mammal relative abundance and occupancy probabilities as proxies for mammalian habitat associations and evaluated how these were affected by key landscape features (e.g., land-use type, asphalt roads, and distance to protected areas). We used hierarchical multi-species Bayesian abundance models that account for imperfect detection to estimate our parameters of interest and model the influence of landscape features on site-level species richness and species relative abundance. We detected 14 species across all reserves and found a strong influence of land use and presence of asphalt roads on mammalian relative abundances and species richness. More species used areas around the camera traps in forest than in shade-grown coffee plantations and far from asphalt roads. Our study shows that reserves with shade-grown coffee plantations can harbor terrestrial mammalian communities of conservation interest. Our results also suggest that to maintain mammalian diversity and abundances in our study area, shade-grown coffee crops should be mixed in with natural forests and the presence of asphalt roads within these should be avoided or minimized.

Landscape Composition Matters for Mammals in Agricultural Ecosystems: A Multiscale Study in Southeastern Brazil

“…It is known that coffee plantation and pasture cannot provide suitable habitats for all mammal species. However, some species may use these areas as stepping stones between forest patches, such as studies in coffee areas in Costa Rica [76], Ethiopia [77], Mexico [78], and Guatemala [79]. Likewise, landscapes intensely altered by pasture tend to favor the occurrence of some generalist species that can cross these more open areas, such as pasture areas in Uruguay [39] and in the interior of São Paulo, Brazil [44].…”