Mammals of medium and large size from a fragmented seasonal forest landscape in Mato Grosso do Sul state, central-western Brazil

The southern cone of Mato Grosso do Sul state is poorly known in terms of mammal community composition. This information is very important to propose an environmental management plan. The present study provides information on the composition of medium and large size mammals in the municipality of Batayporã, in the Ivinhema river basin, southwestern Brazil. The mammal community was sampled during 19 field sampling occasions by the identification of vestiges, such as burrows, feces, vocalization and tracks, as well as through direct observations. I recorded 24 mammal species distributed in eight taxonomic orders. Thirteen species were frequently recorded, six species were rarely recorded, and six species are considered threatened in Brazil or in global level. The area presents almost half of the medium and largesized mammal fauna from Mato Grosso do Sul state, but fragmentation and sugarcane plantations may represent a threat to the local biodiversity conservation. DOI: 10.15560/10.6.1430 Figure 1. Precipitation and temperature in the municipality of Batayporã, Mato Grosso do Sul state. Data for 1996–2009 (Rivas-Martínez and RivasSáenz 2009). L s t s o f s p e c ie s


Introduction
The Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul presents a rich mammal fauna comprising 151 species, 44 of which are medium and large-sized species (Cáceres et al. 2008a). Nevertheless, there are still few studies about the mammalian fauna for the state, and the lists of medium and large mammals available refer to areas of the Pantanal (Tomas et al. 2010;Alho et al. 2011) and highland regions surrounding the Pantanal, like the Urucum mountains (Mauro and Campos 2000), Amolar mountains (Porfirio et al. 2014), Bodoquena mountains (Cáceres et al. 2007) and regions of Aporé and Sucuriú rivers, in the northeastern part of the state (Bordignon et al. 2006).
The Ivinhema river basin is located in the southeastern region of Mato Grosso do Sul state. This region is considered "poorly known" and has been recommended for biological inventories (MMA 2002). Moreover, in the basin is located the Environmental Protection Area "APA das Ilhas e Várzeas do Rio Paraná" which harbor threatened mammals , such as the Marsh Deer Blastocerus dichotomus (Illiger, 1815), Tapir Tapirus terrestris (Linnaeus, 1758), Ocelot Leopardus pardalis (Linnaeus, 1758) and Jaguar Panthera onca (Linnaeus, 1758) (MMA 2014). Thus, the goal of the present study is to provide a list of the medium and large-sized mammals present in the seasonal forest of the Batayporã municipality, located in the Ivinhema river basin, located in the southeastern region of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul.

Study area
The study was carried out in the municipality of Batayporã, southeastern Mato Grosso do Sul, in the Environmental Mammals of medium and large size from a fragmented seasonal forest landscape in Mato Grosso do Sul state, central-western Brazil Abstract: The southern cone of Mato Grosso do Sul state is poorly known in terms of mammal community composition. This information is very important to propose an environmental management plan. The present study provides information on the composition of medium and large size mammals in the municipality of Batayporã, in the Ivinhema river basin, southwestern Brazil. The mammal community was sampled during 19 field sampling occasions by the identification of vestiges, such as burrows, feces, vocalization and tracks, as well as through direct observations. I recorded 24 mammal species distributed in eight taxonomic orders. Thirteen species were frequently recorded, six species were rarely recorded, and six species are considered threatened in Brazil or in global level. The area presents almost half of the medium and largesized mammal fauna from Mato Grosso do Sul state, but fragmentation and sugarcane plantations may represent a threat to the local biodiversity conservation. Lists o f species 53°16′57″ W) and site 2 (22°29′43″ S, 53°16′21″ W) were composed of predominantly flooded alluvial seasonal forest; site 3 (22°27′21″ S, 53°17′21″ W) and site 4 (22°28′25″ S, 53°18′16″ W) were composed by fragments of semideciduous seasonal forest; and site 5 (22°28′56″ S, 53°18′04″ W) was characterized by the presence of várzea -a floodplain that accompanies rivers and streams ( Figure 2) (Veloso et al. 1991). The shortest distance between sites was 1.5 km and the longest was 7 km. All forest remnants are inserted in a matrix composed of sugarcane plantations (Figure 2), the main economic activity of the region. This study covers data collected during 19 sampling occasions, with three days each, carried out every three months between September of 2009 and July of 2014.
Medium and large mammals were recorded in the sampling sites by: i) direct observations; ii) tracks; iii) burrows (armadillos); iv) vocalization (primates); and v) feces. The sampling effort in the field comprised two hours at each site for each sampling occasion, with a total of 190 sampling hours. The threat category of mammalian species was classified according to the Brazilian list of threatened mammals (Chiarello et al. 2008) and the Red List of the Threatened Species published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN 2013). The taxonomic classification follows Paglia et al. (2012). The tracks and others signs were identified according to Lima Borges and Tomas (2004).
Data collected was analyzed through the composition and species richness (observed and estimated). Estimated richness was calculated using the Jackknife 1. The species accumulation curve (collector curve) was provided using the software EstimateS 8.2 (Colwell 2005) based on the number of new species added as a function of the field sampling effort, including all sampling methods.

Results
Twenty-four species of medium and large mammals were recorded, encompassing eight orders and 15 families. Carnivora was the richest order with nine species (Table 1). The species accumulation curves for observed and estimated richness showed a tendency to stabilization ( Figure 3) suggesting that most mammal species of the area were sampled.
Thirteen species were recorded in more than half of the sampling occasions, specially the Brown Capuchin Monkey Figure 5).

Discussion
This study recorded 54.5% of the medium and large mammals present in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul (Cáceres et al. 2008a). In addition to contributing with new research on the southern region of the state, this study also registered nine species that have not been recorded for the Atlantic Forest of Mato Grosso do Sul (see Cáceres et al. 2008a (G. Fischer, 1814) and Da. azarae (Figure 4 and 5). The paucity of data on the mammal community in the Atlantic Forest of Mato Grosso do Sul is due mainly to the absence of research on this region, but may also be related to the poor state of conservation of   the entire region, where only small fragments (most of them smaller than 100 ha) of semidecidual seasonal forest remain (Cáceres et al. 2008a). Species such as Ce. thous, Hy. hydro chaeris, Tap. terrestris, Pr. cancrivorus, Da. azarae, Sa. cay and Pu. concolor are frequently recorded species in the central-western portion of Brazil (Cáceres et al. 2008b). On the other hand, Lo. longicaudis, Ga. cuja and Tay. pecari are species rarely recorded in this region. The abundance or rarity of the species of mammals may be related to one or two main factors. The first is the natural abundance or rarity of species in the habitats investigated and the second is a sensitivity of each species to changes in habitat (Cáceres et al. 2008b).
For the non-volant mammals, habitat fragmentation, poaching and road kills are the main factors that threaten the conservation of species (Chiarello 1999;Cullen Jr. et al. 2000;2001;Costa et al. 2005;Cáceres et al. 2010). Road kills perhaps have the biggest impact on the population of some species of mammals (e.g., My. tridactyla, Tamandua tetradactyla (Linnaeus, 1758), Ch. brachyurus, Pu. concolor and Tap. terrestris) , many of which are already becoming rare due to the hunting pressure, loss and fragmentation of habitats (Chiarello 1999;Cullen Jr. et al. 2000;Costa et al. 2005).  Although the region of this study is mainly composed by monocultures of sugarcane, threatened species occur there such as My. tridactyla, Leopardus pardalis, Pu. concolor, Ch. brachyurus, Tap. terrestris and Tay. pecari. Habitat generalist species such as My. tridactyla, L. pardalis, Pu. concolor and Tap. terrestris are very common in central-western Brazil (Cáceres et al. 2008b). Ch. brachyurus is uncommon in this region, however, this species is omnivorous, with a broad diet including 68 species or morphospecies of fruits (mainly Solanum lycocarpum) and animals (mainly mammals such as armadillos and small rodents) (Bueno et al. 2002). Armadillos and small rodents are common in the study area (W. Hannibal personal communication). In conclusion, almost half of medium and large mammals of the Mato Grosso do Sul state were recorded in the study area, contributing to the inventory of mammalian fauna in seasonal forests (Atlantic slope), a threatened phytophysiognomy where few studies on mammals have been done.