Nonvolant Mammal Megadiversity and Conservation Issues in a Threatened Central Amazonian Hotspot in Brazil

Abstract

Amazonia National Park is located in southwestern Pará State in central Amazonia. The 10,707 km 2 park is one of the largest protected areas in Brazil and is covered with pristine forests, but the region is threatened by dam construction projects. An incomplete mammal biodiversity inventory was conducted in the area during the late 1970s. Here, we present results of sampling from 7,295 live-trap nights, 6,000 pitfall-trap nights, more than 1,200 km of walking transect censuses, and approximately 3,500 camera-trap days, all conducted between 2012 and 2014. These sampling efforts generated a list of 86 known species of nonvolant mammals, making the park the single most species-rich area for nonvolant mammals both in the Amazon Basin and in the Neotropics as a whole. Amazonia National Park is a megadiverse site, as is indicated by its mammalian richness, which includes 15 threatened mammal species and 5 to 12 new species of small mammals. As such, it merits being a high-conservation priority and should be an important focus of Brazilian authorities' and the international scientific community's conservation efforts. A comprehensive conservation plan is urgently needed, especially given the ecological threats posed by dam construction.

Mammalian Diversity and Matses Ethnomammalogy in Amazonian Peru Part 3: Marsupials (Didelphimorphia)

“…Although central Amazonia (including the Yavarí-Ucayali interfluve) falls outside the mapped geographic range of Chironectes minimus in most standard references (e.g., Stein and Patton, 2008), recent observations and gene-sequencing results (Ardente et al, 2013;Brandão et al, 2015;Oliveira et al, 2016; suggest that the water opossum is continuously distributed from Central America to southeastern Brazil. Despite geographic variation in craniodental morphology reported by Damasceno and Astúa (2016) and Cerqueira and Weber (2017), this species seems to be genetically undifferentiated across most, if not all, of cis-Andean South America, and it shows minimal genetic divergence even across the Andes .…”

Angiostrongylus vasorum and Aelurostrongylus abstrusus: Neglected and underestimated parasites in South America

“…Based on the specific cardiopulmonary localization and the historical confusion on the nomenclature, we here refer to these reported parasites as A. vasorum. Future research on these and other wildlife species is therefore mandatory to elucidate the natural definitive host spectrum of A. vasorum in a geographical region to be considered as mega-biodiverse as it is the South America subcontinent [ 53 ].…”

Honest error, precaution or alertness advertisement? Reactions to vertebrate pseudopredators in red‐nosed cuxiús (Chiropotes albinasus), a high‐canopy neotropical primate

“…Data on the red‐nosed cuxiú were collected during a 21‐month study (April 2012–December 2013) on the Tapajós River, Pará State, Brazil (de Oliveira et al, ). Primate surveys were conducted in flooded river‐margin forest along both banks from the town of Itaituba (04°16′33″S, 55°59′02″W) to the rapids at above the community of Machado, and along the Jamanxim River to the first set of impassable rapids—a river‐travel distance of some 400 km.…”