Landscape structure and it’s impact on wildlife species in a highly fragmented dry forest landscape in Ecuador

Keywords: camera-traps; mammals; NDVI; Sentinel-2; land-cover; tropical dry forest
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Sunday
Session Start / End Time: 2/27/2022 02:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/27/2022 03:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 17

Abstract

Despite high fragmentation and deforestation, little is known about wildlife species richness and occurrence probabilities in tropical dry forest (TDF) landscapes. To fill this gap in knowledge, we used a Sentinel-2-derived land-cover map, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data and a multispecies occupancy model to assess the effect of landscape characteristics on medium and large mammal occurrence and richness in three TDF areas that differ in disturbance and seasonality in Ecuador. Results indicate that species occupancy is related to low forest cover and high vegetation seasonality (i.e. high difference in NDVI between the wet and dry seasons). We believe that the apparent negative effect of forest cover is an indicator the remaining wildlife species tend to be tolerant for disturbance. The three sampling areas varied from 98% to 40 % forest cover, yet species richness and occupancy were not significantly different among them. Vegetation seasonality indicates that more seasonal forests (i.e. those where most tree species lose their leaves during the dry season) tend to have higher mammal species occupancy compared to, less seasonal, semi-deciduous forests. This research offers a good understanding of mammal species’ responses to habitat disturbance and fragmentation in TDFs