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Characteristics of Central American brocket deer resting sites in a tropical mountain cloud forest in eastern Mexico

The Central American brocket deer is a vulnerable species. Geographically isolated populations have been affected by poaching and habitat fragmentation, leading to local extinctions. It is therefore important to understand this species’ habitat characteristics, particularly of resting sites, which p...

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Autores principales: Muñoz Vazquez, Brenda, Gallina Tessaro, Sonia, León-Paniagua, Livia
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8734461/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35036083
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12587
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author Muñoz Vazquez, Brenda
Gallina Tessaro, Sonia
León-Paniagua, Livia
author_facet Muñoz Vazquez, Brenda
Gallina Tessaro, Sonia
León-Paniagua, Livia
author_sort Muñoz Vazquez, Brenda
collection PubMed
description The Central American brocket deer is a vulnerable species. Geographically isolated populations have been affected by poaching and habitat fragmentation, leading to local extinctions. It is therefore important to understand this species’ habitat characteristics, particularly of resting sites, which play a crucial role in survival and fitness. We describe the characteristics and distribution patterns of Central American brocket deer resting sites at the microhabitat and landscape scales in San Bartolo Tutotepec, Hidalgo, México. We conducted eight bimonthly field surveys between November 2017 and March 2019, consisting of 32 transects of 500 m length to search for fecal pellets, footprints, scrapes, and browsed plants. At each resting site we identified, we measured canopy closure, horizontal thermal cover, protection from predators for fawns and adults, escape routes, slope from the ground, presence of scrapes, cumulative importance value of the edible plant species, and distance from the resting site to the nearest water resource to characterize the site at the microhabitat scale. At the landscape scale, we identified the type of biotope, elevation, aspect, and slope. We compared all of these parameters from resting sites with a paired randomly selected site to serve as a control. We performed a multiple logistic regression to identify the parameters associated with the resting sites and a point pattern analysis to describe their distribution. We characterized 43 resting sites and their corresponding control plots. At the microhabitat scale, resting sites were associated with higher vertical thermal cover, more concealment cover, more escape routes, more edible plant species, higher slope from the ground, and closer distance to water resources. At the landscape scale, resting sites were associated with beech forest, oak forest, secondary forest, and ravine biotopes and negatively associated with pine forest, houses, and roads. Resting sites had an aggregated spatial pattern from 0 to 900 m, but their distribution was completely random at larger scales. Our study revealed that Central American brocket deer selected places with specific characteristics to rest, at both microhabitat and landscape scales. We therefore suggest that existing habitat be increased by reforesting with native species—particularly Mexican beech forest and oak forest—to improve the deer’s conservation status in the study area.
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spelling pubmed-87344612022-01-14 Characteristics of Central American brocket deer resting sites in a tropical mountain cloud forest in eastern Mexico Muñoz Vazquez, Brenda Gallina Tessaro, Sonia León-Paniagua, Livia PeerJ Animal Behavior The Central American brocket deer is a vulnerable species. Geographically isolated populations have been affected by poaching and habitat fragmentation, leading to local extinctions. It is therefore important to understand this species’ habitat characteristics, particularly of resting sites, which play a crucial role in survival and fitness. We describe the characteristics and distribution patterns of Central American brocket deer resting sites at the microhabitat and landscape scales in San Bartolo Tutotepec, Hidalgo, México. We conducted eight bimonthly field surveys between November 2017 and March 2019, consisting of 32 transects of 500 m length to search for fecal pellets, footprints, scrapes, and browsed plants. At each resting site we identified, we measured canopy closure, horizontal thermal cover, protection from predators for fawns and adults, escape routes, slope from the ground, presence of scrapes, cumulative importance value of the edible plant species, and distance from the resting site to the nearest water resource to characterize the site at the microhabitat scale. At the landscape scale, we identified the type of biotope, elevation, aspect, and slope. We compared all of these parameters from resting sites with a paired randomly selected site to serve as a control. We performed a multiple logistic regression to identify the parameters associated with the resting sites and a point pattern analysis to describe their distribution. We characterized 43 resting sites and their corresponding control plots. At the microhabitat scale, resting sites were associated with higher vertical thermal cover, more concealment cover, more escape routes, more edible plant species, higher slope from the ground, and closer distance to water resources. At the landscape scale, resting sites were associated with beech forest, oak forest, secondary forest, and ravine biotopes and negatively associated with pine forest, houses, and roads. Resting sites had an aggregated spatial pattern from 0 to 900 m, but their distribution was completely random at larger scales. Our study revealed that Central American brocket deer selected places with specific characteristics to rest, at both microhabitat and landscape scales. We therefore suggest that existing habitat be increased by reforesting with native species—particularly Mexican beech forest and oak forest—to improve the deer’s conservation status in the study area. PeerJ Inc. 2022-01-03 /pmc/articles/PMC8734461/ /pubmed/35036083 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12587 Text en ©2022 Muñoz Vazquez et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Animal Behavior
Muñoz Vazquez, Brenda
Gallina Tessaro, Sonia
León-Paniagua, Livia
Characteristics of Central American brocket deer resting sites in a tropical mountain cloud forest in eastern Mexico
title Characteristics of Central American brocket deer resting sites in a tropical mountain cloud forest in eastern Mexico
title_full Characteristics of Central American brocket deer resting sites in a tropical mountain cloud forest in eastern Mexico
title_fullStr Characteristics of Central American brocket deer resting sites in a tropical mountain cloud forest in eastern Mexico
title_full_unstemmed Characteristics of Central American brocket deer resting sites in a tropical mountain cloud forest in eastern Mexico
title_short Characteristics of Central American brocket deer resting sites in a tropical mountain cloud forest in eastern Mexico
title_sort characteristics of central american brocket deer resting sites in a tropical mountain cloud forest in eastern mexico
topic Animal Behavior
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8734461/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35036083
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12587
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