The importance of riparian forests as corridors for mammals in a productive landscape of the Yungas

Abstract

In agricultural landscapes, riparian forests often represent the last remaining fragments of native habitats,facilitating wildlife movement and playing a crucial role in conservation. In the Yungas, a forest ecoregion east ofthe Andes mountain range in South America, these forests still support significant mammal diversity; however,they remain poorly studied. The aim of this study is therefore to assess the importance of riparian forest corridorsfor mammal communities within a productive matrix, compared to those in a continuous forest landscape. Weused diversity indices, PERMANOVA and SIMPER analysis to compare species frequency variation between riparian forest types. Furthermore, we employed principal component analysis (PCA) and generalised linearmodels (GLMs) to identify the variables that explain habitat use. The species richness and diversity indices ofboth riparian forest types were similar. Seven species contributed to the dissimilarity between the situations. Themost frequently recorded mammal species differed between the two environments: the agouti (Dasyprocta variegata) was most common in the riparian forest, whereas the tapeti (Sylvilagus brasiliensis) dominated in the forestembedded within the productive matrix. The global model did not show statistically significant relationshipsbetween species richness and the environmental variables, however, the species-specific models indicated thatdetection frequency was significantly influenced at fine scales by canopy cover, the percentage of croplands, andthe density of nearby roads, and at broader scales by the distance to protected areas and to cities/towns.Therefore, we recommend prioritizing riparian forests for biological restoration actions within agriculturallandscapes, as this may enhance the persistence of mammal populations across large spatial extents.