Habitat Suitability for Primate Conservation in North-East Brazil
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Habitat suitability for primate conservation in north-east Brazil B ÁRBARA M ORAES,ORLY R AZGOUR,JOÃO P EDRO S OUZA-ALVES J EAN P. BOUBLI and B RUNA B EZERRA Abstract Brazil has a high diversity of primates, but in- Introduction creasing anthropogenic pressures and climate change could influence forest cover in the country and cause fu- razil is home to species of non-human primates ture changes in the distribution of primate populations. B(Estrada et al., ; Costa-Araújo et al., ; IUCN, Here we aim to assess the long-term suitability of habitats ), of which occur in the Atlantic Forest, Cerrado for the conservation of three threatened Brazilian primates and Caatinga biomes in the north-east. These three biomes (Alouatta belzebul, Sapajus flavius and Sapajus libidinosus) have been extensively modified by centuries of anthropo- through () estimating their current and future distributions genic forest destruction for the development of agriculture, using species distribution models, () evaluating how much infrastructure and urban areas. Primate populations are in of the areas projected to be suitable is represented within sharp decline, including the most charismatic, elusive and protected areas and priority areas for biodiversity conser- rare species. Half of the primate species in north-east Brazil vation, and () assessing the extent of remaining forest cov- are under threat, including five species categorized as er in areas predicted to be suitable for these species. We Endangered and five categorized as Critically Endangered found that % of the suitable areas are outside protected on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN, ). areas and only % are located in areas with forest cover. Although much attention has been, rightfully, devoted Although not within protected areas, % of the climatically to the plight of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, there has been suitable areas are considered priority areas for conserva- little focus on the Cerrado and Caatinga. The Caatinga in par- tion. Future projections, considering a severe climate change ticular has been neglected in terms of conservation action, scenario, indicate that A. belzebul, S. flavius and S. libidi- although nearly half has already been lost (Beuchle et al., nosus may lose up to , and % of their suitable ). It is predicted that the Atlantic Forest, Cerrado and range, respectively. The establishment of primate popula- Caatinga biomes will be severely affected in the future by con- tions and their long-term survival in these areas are at tinuing anthropogenic impacts in these rapidly developing risk. Mitigation actions such as the implementation of new areas, and by climate change (Marengo et al., ). Thus it protected areas, forest restoration and reduction of green- is important to determine which areas will be more severely house gas emissions will be essential for the conservation affected and where new protected areas are required to create of Brazilian primates. an effective network of protected areas that supports the fu- ture survival of primates in these biomes (Estrada et al., ). Keywords Brazil, climate change, future range shift, gap In the Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da analysis, primates, priority areas, protected areas, species Biodiversidade, the national institution for biodiversity con- distribution models servation in Brazil, developed a conservation action plan for Supplementary material for this article is available at the primates of north-east Brazil (ICMBio-CPB, ). Six doi.org/./S of the primate species in the area were included in this conservation action plan: the red-handed howler monkey Alouatta belzebul, Caatinga howler monkey Alouatta ul- ulata, blonde titi monkey Callicebus barbarabrownae, ’ BÁRBARA MORAES (Corresponding author, orcid.org/0000-0002-1804-9828), Coimbra-Filho s titi monkey Callicebus coimbrai, blonde JOÃO PEDRO SOUZA-ALVES ( orcid.org/0000-0002-8517-1276) and BRUNA capuchin Sapajus flavius and yellow-breasted capuchin BEZERRA ( orcid.org/0000-0003-3039-121X) Programa de Pós-Graduação Sapajus xanthosternos. These species occur in one or more em Biologia Animal, Departamento de Zoologia, Centro de Biociências, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Av. Prof. Moraes Rego, 1235 Cidade of the three biomes occurring in north-east Brazil, the Universitária, Recife PE, 50670-901, Brazil Atlantic Forest, Cerrado and Caatinga. The main threats to E-mail [email protected] these primates are habitat destruction and fragmentation, ORLY RAZGOUR*( orcid.org/0000-0003-3186-0313) Biosciences, University of hunting and the pet trade (ICMBio, ; ICMBio-CPB, Exeter, Exeter, UK ). One of the actions proposed in the conservation JEAN BOUBLI ( orcid.org/0000-0002-5833-9264) School of Environment and Life Sciences, University of Salford, Salford, UK action plan is to determine more accurately the current distribution of all six species and to evaluate how these dis- *Also at: Biological Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK tributions will be affected by future human activities and Received May . Revision requested July . Accepted November . First published online September . climate change (ICMBio-CPB, ). Such data are essential Oryx, 2020, 54(6), 803–813 © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605319001388 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.8, on 25 Sep 2021 at 07:19:48, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605319001388 804 B. Moraes et al. for conservation planning, to ensure there is sufficient north-east of Brazil, but also areas in the north and in the suitable habitat for the survival of these species through centre-west (Fig. ). The Atlantic Forest in north-east creating new protected areas, connecting existing ones and Brazil is at low altitudes (– m; Tabarelli et al., restoring key habitats. ) with annual rainfall of ,–, mm (Rêgo & Spatial analyses such as species distribution models and Hoeflich, ). The Caatinga and the Cerrado biomes are gap analyses are useful for assessing the impact of habitat semiarid environments, with annual precipitation of – loss and fragmentation on species (Beuchle et al., ; , mm (Ratter et al., ;Prado,)and–, mm Titeux et al., ; Zwiener et al., ). Distribution models (Hunke et al., ), respectively. Annual precipitation in project potentially suitable areas for a particular species the Amazon rainforest biome is ,–, mm (Villar based on presence location records and abiotic environ- et al., ). mental data (Elith & Leathwick, ). Gap analysis assesses Alouatta belzebul has a disjunct distribution, occur- whether species or ecosystems are represented within exist- ring in the north-eastern Atlantic Forest and lower east- ing protected areas; i.e. it identifies potential conservation ern Amazon in the Brazilian states of Amapá, Pará and gaps (Rodrigues et al., ). Both techniques provide infor- Maranhão (Veiga et al., ). It is folivorous–frugivorous mation to guide efficient management actions for the con- (Pinto et al., ) and categorized as Vulnerable on the servation of a greater number of species (Rodrigues et al., IUCN Red List because its population has declined by ), and, if integrated, improve the interpretation of % over years (Veiga et al., ). It is estimated that impacts of global change scenarios on biodiversity (Titeux the population restricted to the Atlantic Forest has only et al., ). The combination of such approaches is thus individuals (Veiga et al., ). important for conservation planning, particularly because Sapajus flavius occurs in the Atlantic Forest and Caatin- research and conservation efforts have traditionally focused ga of north-east Brazil (Martins et al., ; Valença on charismatic species and protected areas, leaving some Montenegro et al., ). This species has a generalist diet species and their habitats at high risk of extinction (de Souza & Ferreira, ; Medeiros et al., ) and is (Bezanson & McNamara, ). categorized as Endangered on the IUCN Red List because Here we combine species distribution models and gap of habitat loss and fragmentation resulting from coastal analysis to assess the long-term suitability of habitats for development and sugar cane plantations (Valença Monte- the conservation of two of the six target species included negro et al., ). It is recognized as one of the most threa- in the conservation action plan: A. belzebul and S. flavius. tened primates globally (Mittermeier et al., ), although it We also include a third species, the bearded capuchin is no longer included in the list of the top most endangered Sapajus libidinosus. This species is not included in the na- primate species (Schwitzer et al., ). tional action plan but is strongly affected by habitat loss Sapajus libidinosus inhabits dry forests in semiarid (Beuchle et al., ; Rylands & Kierulff, ), the illegal areas, including the Caatinga and Cerrado biomes (Rylands pet trade (Nascimento et al., ) and hunting for use & Kierulff, ). Although categorized as Least Concern in traditional medicine and in retaliation for crop use on the IUCN Red List (Rylands & Kierulff, ), the (Torres Junior et al., ; Freire-Filho et al., ; Souto Brazilian government considers it to be Near Threatened et al., ). We chose these three species because their ha- (ICMBio, ) and it is likely to become more threatened bitats represent the main biomes of north-east Brazil and because