Wildlife Surveys in Agricultural Landscapes: Terrestrial Medium- to Large-Sized Mammals

Human-induced changes have drastically modified pristine environments, and the replacement of natural ecosystems constrained the composition and structure of communities that they are made of, due to the modification of ecological processes. Survey and mo

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Wildlife Surveys in Agricultural Landscapes: Terrestrial Medium- to Large-Sized Mammals Maria Carolina Lyra-Jorge, Carla Gheler-Costa, Carlos I. Piña, Luís Miguel Rosalino and Luciano M. Verdade

Abstract Human-induced changes have drastically modified pristine environments, and the replacement of natural ecosystems constrained the composition and structure of communities that they are made of, due to the modification of ecological processes. Survey and monitoring sampling schemes have been defined and mostly applied to natural environments, which are characterized by a spatial and structural heterogeneity. However, their application to agroforestry areas should take into consideration that these environments are spatially more homogeneous, but present a temporal heterogeneity linked with the production cycles. In this chapter, we present a description of the assumptions, weaknesses, and strengths of the main methods used in surveying and monitoring medium and large mammals. Moreover, we advise researchers to the need to take into consideration the particularities of agroforestry landscapes and adapt M. C. Lyra-Jorge (*)  Curso de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade de Santo Amaro, Rua Prof. Eneas de Siqueira Neto, 340, São Paulo, SP, 04829-300, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] C. Gheler-Costa  Universidade Sagrado Coração, Rua Arminda, 10-50, Bauru, SP 17011-160, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] C. I. Piña  Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción, (CICYTTP-CONICET)/FCyT-UAdER/FCAL-UNER, Dr. Materi y España, CP 3105, Diamante, Entre Ríos, Argentina e-mail: [email protected] L. M. Rosalino  Centro de Biologia Ambiental—Faculdade de Ciências de Lisboa, Universidade de Lisboa, Ed. 2, Campo Grande, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] L. M. Rosalino  Laboratório de Ecologia Isotópica—CENA/USP, C. P. 96, Piracicaba, SP 13416-000, Brazil L. M. Verdade  Centro de Energia Nuclear na Agricultura, Universidade de São Paulo, Caixa Postal 96, Piracicaba, SP 13416-000, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] L. M. Verdade et al. (eds.), Applied Ecology and Human Dimensions in Biological Conservation, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-54751-5_9, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014

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the mentioned methods to assure the representativeness of the collected data and the ­accuracy of the detected patterns.

9.1 A New Landscape Over the last decades, land use intensification has induced important changes in the terrestrial ecosystems throughout the world, such as the destruction of natural habitats, the fragmentation and isolation of native patches, and the introduction of exotic species, some of which became invasive (Turner and Meyer 1994). In Europe, particularly Switzerland, almost all wetlands have been converted into anthropic landscapes in the last 150 years. But this pattern is not exclusive of areas where humans are present for centuries or millenia. In younger countries, such as Australia, the expansion of pasture lands and s