Papers by MARCELO PASSAMANI
Oecologia Australis
A perda e fragmentação de habitats naturais são as principais causas do declínio da biodiversidad... more A perda e fragmentação de habitats naturais são as principais causas do declínio da biodiversidade, e mamíferos terrestres de médio e grande porte estão entre os taxa mais afetados por estes processos, pois apresentam baixas taxas de reprodução, grandes áreas de vida e sofrem com a pressão de caça. Neste estudo apresentamos a lista de espécies de mamíferos de médio e grande porte que ocorrem no campus da Universidade Federal de Lavras (UFLA) e comparamos com a fauna da região. O campus da UFLA está localizado no sul de Minas Gerais em uma região de transição entre o Cerrado e a Mata Atlântica. As espécies foram registradas por meio de parcelas de areia, armadilhas fotográficas e observações casuais no campus da UFLA. Foram registradas 20 espécies nativas e quatro domésticas de mamíferos, distribuídas em nove ordens e 14 famílias. A espécie Didelphis aurita (Didelphimorphia, Didelphidae) teve a maior frequência de registros (48%) e a ordem Carnivora teve a maior riqueza de espécies (45%). Apesar de o campus da UFLA estar inserido em uma região altamente fragmentada, a riqueza encontrada representa 80% das espécies de mamíferos de médio e grande porte conhecidas para o município de Lavras e 55,5% para a região do sul de Minas Gerais, Brasil. Assim, a contribuição do campus está em manter as manchas de habitat, aumentando a viabilidade populacional dos mamíferos de médio e grande porte na região, tornando-se necessário efetivar a conectividade dos remanescentes florestais e controlar animais domésticos que vivem livres no campus, afim de reduzir os impactos na fauna nativa.
Biological Conservation
Recent studies suggest that habitat amount is the main determinant of species richness, whereas h... more Recent studies suggest that habitat amount is the main determinant of species richness, whereas habitat fragmentation has weak and mostly positive effects. Here, we challenge these ideas using a multi-taxa database including 2230 estimates of forest-dependent species richness from 1097 sampling sites across the Brazilian Atlantic Forest biodiversity hotspot. We used a structural equation modeling approach, accounting not only for direct effects of habitat loss, but also for its indirect effects (via habitat fragmentation), on the richness of forest-dependent species. We reveal that in addition to the effects of habitat loss, habitat fragmentation has negative impacts on animal species richness at intermediate (30–60%) levels of habitat amount, and on richness of plants at high (>60%) levels of habitat amount, both of which are mediated by edge effects. Based on these results, we argue that dismissing habitat fragmentation as a powerful force driving species extinction in tropical forest landscapes is premature and unsafe
Wild pigs (Sus scrofa) native to Eurasia and Africa, are one of the world’s most widely distribut... more Wild pigs (Sus scrofa) native to Eurasia and Africa, are one of the world’s most widely distributed invasive species. Their impacts on terrestrial environments have been well documented, however little is known about effects on aquatic environments. We used standardized physical habitat surveys to compare the use of streams by invasive wild pig and native white-lipped peccaries (Tayassu pecari) and their effects on the physical structure of four first-order streams in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. Two of the streams were used solely by wild pigs and two by peccaries. Each stream was subdivided by cross-sectional transects into continuous sections, each 10 m in length, where we measured the intensity of use of species and different variables related to the stream physical habitat. Although both species used the streams, wild pigs altered physical and environmental parameters more, and with greater intensity, than the native peccaries. Wild pigs decreased the stream bank angle and th...
Journal of Avian Biology
The interaction between ecology and evolution, particularly with regard to speciation processes, ... more The interaction between ecology and evolution, particularly with regard to speciation processes, remains a main topic of scientific research. Andean hummingbirds have undergone a remarkable radiation, with many species exhibiting patchy distributions and, in some cases, taxonomic controversy. An example is the sapphire-vented puffleg Eriocnemis luciani; ssp. baptistae, luciani and meridae, which some authors merge with the coppery-naped puffleg E. sapphiropygia; ssp. catharina and sapphiropygia. Each group is distributed either north or south from the Huancabamba Depression, the major biogeographical barrier within the tropical Andes. We investigated whether these subspecies share some niche characteristics despite their geographical separation and determined their meaning in the context of the speciation process of trochilids in the tropical Andes. For each subspecies, we performed geographical predictions and paired tests of niche conservatism in environmental space. Geographical predictions included separate regions for subspecies catharina and sapphiropygia, while the predicted regions for subspecies luciani and baptistae greatly overlapped. The E. l. luciani model predicted a single pixel near to the potential area of E. l. meridae, known only from a unique, old record. Subspecies luciani and baptistae exhibited the greatest niche overlap among the pairs of taxa for most variables. However, our results clearly indicated niche divergence for the four members of the E. luciani-sapphiropygia complex, independent of the similarities or slight dissimilarities in their respective backgrounds, indicating that other forces in addition to variation in environmental parameters, such as natural selection or genetic drift, are driving the radiation of these hummingbirds. This finding coincides with the unusually high speciation rates reported for Andean hummingbirds. Thus, the currently accepted taxonomy within the E. lucianisapphiropygia complex may be even more convoluted than indicated by previous studies. Hence, the results of our study are a wakeup call to include the exploration of lineage diversification in biodiversity-related efforts.
Ecology, Jan 13, 2018
Primates play an important role in ecosystem functioning and offer critical insights into human e... more Primates play an important role in ecosystem functioning and offer critical insights into human evolution, biology, behavior, and emerging infectious diseases. There are 26 primate species in the Atlantic Forests of South America, 19 of them endemic. We compiled a dataset of 5,472 georeferenced locations of 26 native and 1 introduced primate species, as hybrids in the genera Callithrix and Alouatta. The dataset includes 700 primate communities, 8,121 single species occurrences and 714 estimates of primate population sizes, covering most natural forest types of the tropical and subtropical Atlantic Forest of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina and some other biomes. On average, primate communities of the Atlantic Forest harbor 2±1 species (range=1-6). However, about 40% of primate communities contain only one species. Alouatta guariba (N=2,188 records) and Sapajus nigritus (N=1,127) were the species with the most records. Callicebus barbarabrownae (N=35), Leontopithecus caissara (N=38), a...
The Journal of animal ecology, Sep 28, 2017
1.Niche conservatism, i.e. the retention of a species' fundamental niche through evolutionary... more 1.Niche conservatism, i.e. the retention of a species' fundamental niche through evolutionary time, is cornerstone for biological invasion assessments. The fact that species tend to maintain their original climate niche allows predictive maps of invasion risk to anticipate potential invadable areas. Unraveling the mechanisms driving niche shifts can shed light on the management of invasive species. 2.Here, we assessed niche shifts in one of the world's worst invasive species: the wild boar Sus scrofa. We also predicted potential invadable areas based on an ensemble of three ecological niche modeling methods, and evaluated the performance of models calibrated with native vs pooled (native plus invaded) species records. By disentangling the drivers of change on the exotic wild boar population's niches, we found strong evidence for niche conservatism during biological invasion. 3.Ecological niche models calibrated with both native and pooled range records predicted converge...
Check List, 2009
The diversity of Brazilian vertebrates is regarded among the highest in the world. However, the b... more The diversity of Brazilian vertebrates is regarded among the highest in the world. However, the biological diversity is still mostly unknown and a good part of it is seriously threatened by human activities. This study aimed to inventory the medium and large size mammals present in the Reserva Biológica de Santa Rita do Sapucaí, an Atlantic forest reserve located in Santa Rita do Sapucaí, southeastern Brazil. Sand-plots, photographic traps and searches for animal tracks on pre-existent trails in the area, were carried out once every two months between May 2006 and February 2007. The sand-plots and tracks were inspected during five consecutive days per sampling. We obtained 108 records of 15 species, mostly of carnivorans. Two confirmed species are threatened with extinction in Brazil (Callithrix aurita and Leopardus pardalis). The results suggest that the sampled reserve has high species richness and plays an important role in conservation of mammals in this landscape, including spe...
Revista Brasileira De Zoociencias, Jul 30, 2014
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2016
Revista Agrogeoambiental, 2011
A perda da diversidade de fauna nos ecossistemas está associada a diversos fatores. A fragmentaçã... more A perda da diversidade de fauna nos ecossistemas está associada a diversos fatores. A fragmentação florestal é considerada um fator relevante nesta redução da fauna, tendo em vista suas conseqüências diretas e indiretas. A real dimensão desta perda é um parâmetro pouco conhecido pela população em geral. Os aspectos relacionados à fragmentação são amplamente discutidos, ao longo de 20 anos de estudo na Amazônia, por Laurance e colaboradores. Apesar de estudos na literatura estejam relacionados a ambientes contínuos de floresta, poucos estudos levantam estas questões par fragmentos florestais do Bioma Cerrado. Pela concepção teórica ambientes reduzidos são considerados todos influenciados por borda, ou na verdade uma grande borda. Ainda faltam parâmetros ecológicos específicos para avaliar precisamente a dimensão de uma borda e a área mínima de fragmentos florestais que já apresentam borda e interior. Palavras-chave: Fragmentação; Taxocenose; Diversidade faunística; Interação animal-planta.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2016
The forest refuge hypothesis (FRH) has long been a paradigm for explaining the extreme biological... more The forest refuge hypothesis (FRH) has long been a paradigm for explaining the extreme biological diversity of tropical forests. According to this hypothesis, forest retraction and fragmentation during glacial periods would have promoted reproductive isolation and consequently speciation in forest patches (ecological refuges) surrounded by open habitats. The recent use of paleoclimatic models of species and habitat distributions revitalized the FRH, not by considering refuges as the main drivers of allopatric speciation, but instead by suggesting that high contemporary diversity is associated with historically stable forest areas. However, the role of the emerged continental shelf on the Atlantic Forest biodiversity hotspot of eastern South America during glacial periods has been ignored in the literature. Here, we combined results of species distribution models with coalescent simulations based on DNA sequences to explore the congruence between scenarios of forest dynamics through ...
Natureza & Conservação, 2015
Mammalia, 2015
The introduction of alien species is among the main causes of biodiversity loss. There are many d... more The introduction of alien species is among the main causes of biodiversity loss. There are many documented cases of introduced mammals having severe impacts on the ecosystem. The European hare (
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Papers by MARCELO PASSAMANI