Fatores que afetam o uso de habitat por Cuniculus paca (Linnaeus, 1766) em uma floresta da Amazônia Oriental

Abstract

One of the most used concepts in ecology to explain the distribution of species is that of ecological filters. Environmental conditions and resource availability are presumed to structure assemblages predominantly at regional scales, where high habitat heterogeneity allows species that have the same environmental requirements to live to share different habitats. In turn, changes in fruit availability interfere with the behavior of frugivores. This is seen in caviomorph rodents, which showed variation in their home range between cycles of greater and lesser fruit availability. Our work evaluated the relative importance of different environmental variables, such as altitude and resource availability (fruit biomass), and anthropic variables (distance to the nearest household nucleus) on occupation by C. paca in the Tapajós National Forest ( FNT). We used occupancy models proposed by Mackenzie taking into account the historical detection of the species, using the method of camera traps that recorded its activity in the FNT. Altitude ranged from 83 to 209 m (150 39.4 m), fruit yield ranged from 0 to 6.78 kg per plot (0.91.6 kg) and distance to the nearest community from 1.67 m to 6.4 km (3.81.2 km). C. paca was recorded at least once in 22 of the 38 sampled sites. The probability of detection was 0.27 and the estimated occupancy was 0.67. The method predicted that paca occupies 10% more than the observed proportion when detectability is not taken into account. The model shows that fruit biomass influenced occupation positively (logit beta = 2.11) and altitude affected negatively (logit beta = -1.16) and human occupation did not have a significant response. Despite being considered common and widely distributed in the areas where it occurs, local extinctions have already been recorded, the species suffers pressure from subsistence hunting and poaching in the FNT, j together with other mammal species it helps in the recruitment of timber species which help to reduce the effects of climate change by capturing more carbon for the forest.