Wildlife surveys in agricultural landscapes: Terrestrial medium- to large-sized mammals

LYRA-JORGE, M.C.; GHELER-COSTA, C.; PIÑA, C.I.; ROSALINO, L.M.; VERDADE, L.M.

Applied Ecology and Human Dimensions in Biological Conservation

Springer

Año: 2014; p. 133 - 147

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