Name: JARDEL BRANDÃO SEIBERT
Type: PhD thesis
Publication date: 26/11/2021
Advisor:

Name	Role
Danielle de Oliveira Moreira	Co-advisor *
Sérgio Lucena Mendes	Advisor *

Examining board:

Name	Role
Albert David Ditchfield	Internal Examiner *
Ana Carolina Loss Rodrigues	External Alternate *
Danielle de Oliveira Moreira	Co advisor *
Marcelo Teixeira Tavares	Internal Alternate *
Márcio Leite de Oliveira	External Examiner *
Mariane da Cruz Kaizer	External Examiner *
Sérgio Lucena Mendes	Advisor *
Yuri Luiz Reis Leite	Internal Examiner *

Summary: Large ungulates represent a relevant functional group in the Neotropical region,
and their absence in the environment would induce a loss of important
ecological processes. However, this group has been suffering from anthropic
pressure, affecting quality of the remnant forests and changing the availability of
resources in the landscape. Based on the fact that environmental and anthropic
variables influence the pattern of occupation of a species, this study aimed to
determine the occupation patterns of ungulates, studying the effects of habitat
types and human disturbance on it in a Tabuleiro’s Atlantic Forest in Brazil. The
area holds a large portion of forest presenting high conservation status, and
different crops surround the area of forest. We used camera traps data
collected between January and March in 2017. We have randomly placed 47
camera traps in three different habitats (forest, eucalyptus plantation, and
crops). To estimate the ungulates occupancy, we used the single-species,
single-season occupation model, which estimates the probability of an area is
occupied by a species in a given time interval. We chose the covariates based
on each species ecology and habitats preference. Overall, we had a sampling
effort of 1,854 cameras/day and 465 independent ungulates records. We found
that for the lowland tapir, occupation probability is higher when close to cocoa
agroforests (cabrucas), far from roads, and at a high percentage of forests. For
the collared peccary, the greater distance from cabrucas, the lower the
occupancy and, the greater distances from cassava crops, water bodies, roads,
and the percentage of the forest, the greater the species occupancy. And for the
deer group (Mazama spp.), we found that occupancy is higher when close to
sugar cane, cabrucas, and roads, far from eucalyptus plantation, and when the
percentage of the forest is higher. Our results highlight how important are the
distinct type of environments for the probability of occupancy of ungulates.
Thus, even species with recognizable tolerance to anthropic impact (tapir and
collared peccary) are intimately associated with the forest environment. And,
species from the deer group, which tend to occupy areas with intermediate
levels of anthropic impact, also occupy forest areas and show some probability
to use more disturbed ones (roads, sugar cane, and cabruca crops).

Keywords: anthropic activity; camera traps Linhares-Sooretama Complex;
occupancy; ungulates.

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