Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: TAMARA SANTOS

Uma banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO de MESTRADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : TAMARA SANTOS
DATE: 22/11/2021
TIME: 14:00
LOCAL: Videoconferência online
TITLE:

Spatial ecology of the canid Cerdocyon thous in a tropical dry forest: fragmentation, habitat amount, and chronic anthropogenic disturbance effects

KEY WORDS:

Mammal, canid, carnivore, Caatinga, fragmentation, habitat availability, chronic anthropic disturbance

PAGES: 63
BIG AREA: Ciências Biológicas
AREA: Ecologia
SUMMARY:

Habitat use by mammals has been changing due to the profound anthropogenic alterations in natural landscapes. Determining which factors affect habitat use by species with distinct life histories is fundamental for the understanding of how communities are restructuring and for predicting the anthropogenic impact on biodiversity. In this paper we tested the relative importance of habitat availability, fragmentation and chronic anthropogenic disturbance on the occupancy pattern and abundance of Cerdocyon thous, a generalist canid. Between May and September 2014, detection data were obtained by camera trapping in ten priority areas for conservation of the Caatinga dry forest (Northeast Brazil), totalling 179 sampling points and a total effort of 6,701 camera-days. Occupancy and GLM multiple regression models were used to test how occupancy and abundance of C. thous respond in relation to the explanatory variables: habitat availability, edge density, chronic anthropic disturbance (CDI), altitude and terrain rugosity. Subsequently, an alternative model was tested in which the habitat availability variable was decomposed into three natural habitats (forest, savanna and grassland formation), while CDI was decomposed into five vectors (human population, infrastructure, pasture, logging and fires). The models selected by Akaike's Information Criterion showed that C. thous responded positively to CDI in the abundance analysis, and to the vectors human population and pasture in both the occupancy and abundance analyses. Fragmentation positively influenced the abundance of C. thous. Although total native habitat availability negatively influenced C. thous occupancy, the species responded to habitat types differently. Forest had a negative effect on both occupancy and abundance while savanna had a positive effect for abundance, however, grassland was not a significant variable in any of the analyses. We conclude that the generalist canid Cerdocyon thous has benefited from the anthropization of natural environments, explaining why it has become one of the most abundant mammals in Brazilian dry forests.

BANKING MEMBERS:
Presidente - 1678202 - CARLOS ROBERTO SORENSEN DUTRA DA FONSECA
Interna - 1914239 - MIRIAM PLAZA PINTO
Interna - 3058386 - VANESSA GRAZIELE STAGGEMEIER