Small mammals communities in the forest fragments connected by vegetation corridors in the south of Minas Gerais / Comunidades de pequenos mamÃferos em fragmentos florestais conectados por corredores de vegetaÃÃo no sul de Minas Gerais

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2009

RESUMO

The forest fragmentation is one of the main threats for the biodiversity. For the fauna, the consequences associated to the forest fragmentation are the original habitat loss, reduction of the fragment size and isolation, which create a number of negative effects over the wild populations, affecting the species richness, the abundance and the animal species distribution. So, the vegetation corridors came as an alternative to connect the fragment landscape, minimizing the effects of the structural isolation between habitats. The studied corridor-fragment system is one portion of a major system, placed in the South region of the Minas Gerais State. This system is constituted by several small fragments interconnected by a main corridor, and somewhere by its branches. So that, the goals of this study were to monitor the small mammals communities in the forest fragments connected by vegetation corridors that are inserted in an agricultural matrix. The sample period was from April of 2007 to March of 2008, through the capture-mark-recapture method with live traps. Were sampled a total of 13 sites, being five of them forest fragments, five vegetation corridors and three were constituted by matrix areas (coffee, corn plantation and pasture). The total sample effort of 8940 traps/night resulted in 777 capture events of 317 individuals, with a total capture success of 8.7%. For the 13 sampled areas were recorded 12 small mammals species, being some exclusive to the fragments (Marmosops incanus, Necromys lasiurus and Nectomys squamipes), others common to the corridors and fragment, whereas Calomys sp. was exclusive to the matrix. In general, the corridors and fragments species exhibit similar abundance, while in the matrix sites just Calomys sp. was abundant. Besides, ours results indicate that from the total of 12 captured small mammalsâ species, seven of them moved between the sampled sites, probably through vegetation corridors. These results suggest that the vegetation corridors play an important role to the small mammalsâ community maintenance in the fragmented landscapes of the south of the Minas Gerais State.

ASSUNTO(S)

vegetation corridors ecologia aplicada corredores de vegetaÃÃo fragmentation small mammals matrix pequenos mamÃferos communities fragmentaÃÃo florestal comunidades

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