Enlarging the Atlantic Forest protected area by 2% would help conserve endangered deer

Highly dependent on forests, targeted by hunting and victimized by attacks by domestic dogs and livestock diseases, the Atlantic Forest deer are for the most part vulnerable to extinction. The good news is that conserving 48,400 square kilometers (km²), or 2% of the total area of ​​the biome, may be enough to maintain the populations of the three Brazilian species that live in these forests. Just under 50% of these areas already have some legal protection.

The conclusion is from a study published in the Journal for Nature Conservation by Brazilian researchers supported by Fapesp.

“These species are strictly forestry and, therefore, their presence is an important indicator of the quality of the forests of the Atlantic Forest. Therefore, by conserving the deer, we are protecting the entire ecosystem”, explains Márcio Leite de Oliveira, who carried out the work during a postdoctoral internship at the Center for Research and Conservation of Cervids (Nupecce) of the Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp), in Jaboticabal, with a grant from Fapesp.

The group of authors, which includes researchers from the federal universities of Latin American Integration (Unila), in Foz do Iguaçu, and Paraná (UFPR), concluded that 56.8% of the areas that should be priorities for preservation are not within conservation units.

The other part is within more or less restrictive conservation units, such as biological reserves and national parks (20.7%), in the first case, and Environmental Protection Areas (APAs), in the second, which total 19.9%. A small portion (2.6%) is on indigenous lands.

In order to arrive at these values, the researchers mapped all areas where the bush deer (Mazama rufa), the small bush deer (Mazama jucunda) and the short-handed deer (Mazama nana) occur in the Atlantic Forest, whether in the Brazil, Argentina or Paraguay.

Criteria

In the mapping, the presence of forests and bioclimatic conditions for the survival of the species was considered. In addition, the group considered the minimum area for the viability of populations of each species (120 km²).

A part of areas theoretically suitable for animals was added to the map, but which still do not have records of occurrence. “As it is not possible to be sure whether the species occur or not, these territories had their weight reduced in the mapping”, says Oliveira.

The authors also found that many areas, even within protected areas, suffer from various human influences, such as the presence of hunters and exotic species such as domestic dogs (which chase and kill deer), pigs, cows, sheep and wild boar, which can transmit diseases.

Therefore, half of the area proposed as a priority has great human influence, and the other part, less. Thus, the public policies to be adopted for the conservation of these species need to be different.

In areas of great human influence outside protected areas, the authors advise the creation of protected areas that allow for some sustainable uses, such as APAs. In those that are less affected by people, they propose the establishment of more restrictive areas, such as parks and reserves.

“We identified 21 of these large forest massifs outside protected areas that could sustain viable populations of deer and could be transformed into new conservation units,” says Oliveira.

Although the level of protection of some conservation units is lower, the existence of legal protection would necessarily make the environmental licensing process for works more rigorous, somehow protecting the deer.

With the mapping, the researchers hope to provide a realistic but effective basis for managers and communities to conserve these mammals and, by extension, ecosystems.

The work was also supported by Fapesp through a doctoral scholarship granted to Pedro Henrique de Faria Peres.

new genre

The Nupecce group, coordinated by José Maurício Barbanti Duarte, professor at the Faculty of Agrarian and Veterinary Sciences (FCAV) at Unesp, in Jaboticabal, has dedicated itself in recent decades to an in-depth examination of South American deer species (read more in : agencia.fapesp.br/37372/).

As a result, some groups have been reclassified, such as the bush deer, which was previously regarded as just one species (Mazama americana), but which genetic and taxonomic studies have shown to be a complex that includes, for example, Mazama rufa, mentioned above. and recently revalidated.

In the wake of these works, the group has just brought back the genus Subulo, originally described in 1827 and which was later considered synonymous with Mazama.

In an article published in the Journal of Mammalogy, researchers remove the brocket deer from the genus Mazama. The species, which lives in the Caatinga, Cerrado and cerradões, is now called Subulo guazoubira.

In the work, supported by Fapesp through two projects (17/07014-8 and 19/06940-1), the researchers solve another piece of the complex evolutionary puzzle of South American deer.

The article Using niche modeling and human influence index to indicate conservation priorities for Atlantic forest deer species can be read here.

A redescription of the Subulo genus is available here.