Carnivore Diversity at a Montane Rainforest Site in Ecuador's Gran
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Carnivore diversity at a montane rainforest site in Ecuador’s Gran Sumaco Biosphere Reserve A NNE-MARIE C. HODGE and B RIAN S. ARBOGAST Abstract Ecuador harbours a diverse assemblage of tropical Introduction mammals, yet the natural history and local-scale distri- butions of many species remain poorly understood. We istorically, the cryptic and often nocturnal nature of conducted the first systematic camera-trap survey of terres- Hmany Neotropical carnivores has made them challen- trial mammalian carnivores at Wildsumaco Wildlife ging to study in the wild (Kelly, ). As a result, knowl- Sanctuary, a mid-elevation (,–, m), montane rain- edge of which and how many species co-exist at local forest site on the slopes of Sumaco Volcano, in the heart scales is typically sparse (Di Bitetti et al., ). Mid- of the Tropical Andes biodiversity hotspot. We quantified elevation sites are especially interesting locations in which trap success, latency to detection and temporal activity pat- to investigate distributional patterns in Neotropical carni- terns for each species detected. We recorded nine carnivore vores as these sites are predicted to have relatively high species (four felids, two procyonids and three mustelids), species diversity and the potential to support novel species including the first verified record of the jaguarundi Puma assemblages not found at either higher or lower elevations yagouaroundi in the region. These species comprise (Shepherd & Kelt, ; McCain, ; Burneo, ). It one-third of all terrestrial carnivore species known to is difficult to determine the degree to which these predic- occur in Ecuador and % of those thought to occur at tions hold true, however, because there is a paucity of mid-elevation. All except one of the carnivores we detected empirical studies of mid-elevation Neotropical carnivore have reported elevational ranges # , m; the one communities. Detailed studies of these communities exception, the puma Puma concolor, occurs throughout therefore offer an opportunity to document species diversity mainland Ecuador at –, m. No cloud forest or and community membership, and to test hypotheses related highland species (i.e. those with a reported lower elevational to patterns of species co-existence in space and time at limit of $ , m) were detected. Trap success was a local scale. Documenting distributional patterns of highest, and latency to detection smallest, for the margay Neotropical carnivore diversity and characterizing species Leopardis wiedii, and temporal activity patterns for assemblages at the local scale are also important from all species were consistent with those reported previously a conservation perspective. Carnivore populations depend in the literature. Our results demonstrate that the mid- upon the health and abundance of prey populations for elevation montane rainforests of Sumaco Volcano support sustenance, and thus carnivores can be sensitive to an exceptionally high diversity of co-existing mammalian environmental disturbance and habitat degradation and carnivores, many of which appear to be near their upper loss (Woodroffe & Ginsburg, ; Laidlaw, ; Cardillo elevational limits, and emphasize the conservation value et al., ); for example, large-bodied carnivores, which of this area. typically occur at low population densities, are often lost from habitat fragments that fall below a critical size Keywords Biodiversity, camera survey, Ecuador, Felidae, (Michalski & Peres, ). Both quality and quantity of mammals, South America, Tropical Andes, wildlife habitat have direct and indirect effects on the geographical monitoring distribution and local-scale occupancy patterns of mesopredator populations. Mesopredators maintain their populations through a fine balance between top-down constraints from larger carnivores and bottom-up con- straints in the form of resource availability (Elmhagen & Rushton, ). Finally, anthropogenic disturbance causes many animal populations to experience range ANNE-MARIE C. HODGE* (Corresponding author) and BRIAN S. ARBOGAST contractions (Poley et al., ), creating discontinuous Department of Biology and Marine Biology, University of North Carolina, or patchy regional occupancy patterns. Thus, detailed 601 S. College Road, Wilmington, NC, 28405 USA local-scale studies also provide an opportunity to investigate E-mail [email protected] the environmental conditions that may facilitate the co- *Current address: Department of Zoology and Physiology, University of Wyoming, 1000 E. University Ave., Laramie, WY, 82070 USA occurrence of the greatest number of carnivore species. Received October . Revision requested November . Remotely triggered camera-trapping has shown to be a Accepted January . First published online May . useful method for documenting the presence, population Oryx, 2016, 50(3), 474–479 © 2015 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605315000101 Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Wyoming, on 05 Jan 2017 at 22:08:54, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0030605315000101 Carnivore diversity in Ecuador reserve 475 status, and activity patterns of elusive Neotropical carni- vores (Gutiérrez-Gonzalez et al., ; Kilshaw et al., ; Quiroga et al., ). Here we present the first systematic camera survey of mammalian carnivore diversity on Sumaco Volcano, Ecuador, which is within the Tropical Andes global bio- diversity hotspot (Brooks et al., ; Jenkins et al., ). The mid-elevation position of our study site, its proximity to the borders of a National Park, the mixed-use landscape in the surrounding matrix, the presence of both primary and mature secondary growth forest, and the abundance of prey species documented during pilot studies all underlie the importance of documenting carnivore species diversity and detection rates in the region. Study area We worked at Wildsumaco Wildlife Sanctuary, a private conservancy within the c. , ha Gran Sumaco Biosphere Reserve. The c. ha Sanctuary is located at mid-elevation (,–, m), km from the southern boundary of Sumaco Napo–Galeras National Park FIG. 1 Location of Wildsumaco Wildlife Sanctuary in Gran (c. , ha; Fig. ), which comprises two disjunct protec- Sumaco Biosphere Reserve, Ecuador. The rectangle on the inset ted areas, Sumaco to the north and Cordillera Galeras to the shows the location of the main map in Ecuador. Figure modified south. The upper slopes of Sumaco Volcano (. , m) from Ruiz ( ). are within the Park, and the dominant vegetation types are cloud forest (,−, m) and páramo (. , m). trap nights); Waterfall Trail, December – The Sanctuary contains both secondary and primary rainfor- February (, trap nights); and Puffbird Trail, est and is situated within a larger matrix of rainforest and February– May ( trap nights). Camera stations intermittent livestock pastures and rural homesteads. It is were located – m apart in an approximately linear typified by montane rainforest (both primary and secondary), fashion, following footpaths and game trails, as the steep yet it lies in close proximity (c. km and minelevation)to topography precluded the use of a regularly spaced grid. the cloud forest biome that dominates much of Sumaco For each survey, – cameras were utilized. Volcano above , m. Tirira () was the primary reference for species identification. When a species was detected for the first Methods time, the authors classified the animal independently, and photographs were distributed to multiple colleagues Data were collected during July −June , using for verification of species identity. Partial photographs remote camera transects (Silver et al., ). Digital of individuals were considered detections only if diagnostic Reconyx RC (Reconyx, Inc., Holmen, USA) cameras features were clearly present and unambiguous. were deployed with both motion and infrared sensors en- Trap success was calculated as the number of capture abled. Cameras were mounted on tree trunks, .–. m events for each species per trap night for each transect from the ground. When possible, two cameras were (Gerber et al., ). Latency to initial detection was quan- installed at each station to increase the probability of tified for each species by using the date/time stamps on the both sides of a passing animal’s body being photographed. photographs to determine the number of trap nights be- Simultaneous captures by paired cameras, or captures of in- tween the initiation of sampling on a transect and the first dividuals of the same species occurring , hour apart, were record of a species on that transect (Gompper et al., ). considered non-independent and were therefore pooled for We documented temporal activity patterns for each species analysis. by recording the proportion of detections that occurred at Each survey lasted – weeks, and each focused on a dif- dawn ( hour before to hour after sunrise, .–.), ferent forest transect. Transects and sampling periods were during the day (.–.), at dusk ( hour before to as follows: F.A.C.E. Trail, July– October (, trap hour after sunset, .–.), and at night (.– nights); Benavides Trail, October– December ( .), following Lucherini et al. (). The close Oryx, 2016, 50(3), 474–479 © 2015 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605315000101 Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Wyoming, on 05 Jan 2017 at 22:08:54, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0030605315000101