Community structure and diversity of tropical forest mammals: data from a global camera trap network

1. Jorge A. Ahumada1,*,
2. Carlos E. F. Silva2,
3. Krisna Gajapersad3,
4. Chris Hallam4,
5. Johanna Hurtado5,
6. Emanuel Martin6,
7. Alex McWilliam4,
8. Badru Mugerwa8,
9. Tim O'Brien9,
10. Francesco Rovero6,7,
11. Douglas Sheil8,11,
12. Wilson R. Spironello2,
13. Nurul Winarni10 and
14. Sandy J. Andelman1

+ Author Affiliations

1. ¹Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring Network, Science and Knowledge Division, Conservation International, Arlington, VA, USA
2. ²Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA), Manaus, Brazil
3. ³Conservation International Suriname, Paramaribo, Suriname
4. ⁴Wildlife Conservation Society, Lao PDR Office, Vientiane, Lao Public Democratic Republic
5. ⁵La Selva Biological Station, Organization for Tropical Studies, Sarapiqui, Costa Rica
6. ⁶Udzungwa Ecological Monitoring Centre, Mang'ula, Tanzania
7. ⁷Museo Tridentino di Scienze Naturali, Trento, Italy
8. ⁸Institute of Tropical Forest Conservation (Mbarara University of Science and Technology), Kabale, Uganda
9. ⁹Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, NY, USA
10. ¹⁰Wildlife Conservation Society, Indonesia Office, Indonesia
11. ¹¹Center for International Forestry Research, Bogor, Indonesia

1. ↵*Author for correspondence (j.ahumada@conservation.org).

Abstract

Terrestrial mammals are a key component of tropical forest communities as indicators of ecosystem health and providers of important ecosystem services. However, there is little quantitative information about how they change with local, regional and global threats. In this paper, the first standardized pantropical forest terrestrial mammal community study, we examine several aspects of terrestrial mammal species and community diversity (species richness, species diversity, evenness, dominance, functional diversity and community structure) at seven sites around the globe using a single standardized camera trapping methodology approach. The sites—located in Uganda, Tanzania, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Suriname, Brazil and Costa Rica—are surrounded by different landscape configurations, from continuous forests to highly fragmented forests. We obtained more than 51 000 images and detected 105 species of mammals with a total sampling effort of 12 687 camera trap days. We find that mammal communities from highly fragmented sites have lower species richness, species diversity, functional diversity and higher dominance when compared with sites in partially fragmented and continuous forest. We emphasize the importance of standardized camera trapping approaches for obtaining baselines for monitoring forest mammal communities so as to adequately understand the effect of global, regional and local threats and appropriately inform conservation actions.