White-lipped and collared peccaries (Tayassu pecari and Pecari tajacu, respectively) are abundant and widespread fruit-eating (frugivorous)/omnivorous mammals in Neotropical rain forests. Recent studies have shown that their role as fruit predators and dispersers affects the biodiversity of certain forest habitats.
The white-lipped peccaries (WLP) are the only rain forest ungulates which form large herds (50-300 individuals), so their effects on forest habitats can be dramatic. Extirpation of either peccary species from a rain forest area would undoubtedly cause habitat alterations and additional biodiversity losses.
Unfortunately, local extinctions of the white-lipped peccary have been reported throughout its vast geographical range. In the Atlantic Forest of southeastern Brazil, a variety of negative consequences associated with habitat fragmentation have been the principle causes for local extinctions of white-lipped peccaries and population declines of collared peccaries.
We spent 5 years studying seasonal trends in the ecology of white-lipped and collared peccaries inhabiting a 2,200 ha fragment of semidecidous Atlantic Forest. The remaining peccary populations in this severely fragmented portion of the Atlantic Forest are often small and isolated.
To guarantee gene flow between WLP populations in the Pantanal and to prevent further deforestation and the array of related consequences in the Brazilian Pantanal, WCS-Brazil/Pantanal works with landowners to promote sustainable ranch management practices that are profitable alternatives to deforestation and habitat conversion.
Our project: Conserving Pantanal biodiversity by improving ranch management practices involves a team of scientists to implement a project that involves cattle ranchers, and the conservation of large tracts of land.
The project also provides environmental educational to community members that have the greatest potential to impact conservation now and to sustain conservation efforts in the future. We stimulate and engage groups with knowledge about conservation issues in the Pantanal and conservation-related field research.
The main goals of the study were to examine seasonal patterns of resource use and availability, determine how the two species persist in an isolated patch of tropical forest, and apply the results to conservation strategies. Today, numerous publications resulting from this study are widely distributed in various popular and scientific journals.
For the past 10 years, we’ve been studying peccary ecology, population genetics, and infectious disease evaluation in the Pantanal of Brazil, a region where relatively undisturbed continuous tracts of wildlife habitat still exist. However, because more than 95% of the Brazilian portion (70% of total Pantanal) and the highlands that surround the region consist of private properties, the Pantanal has been vulnerable to recent economic trends that have driven large-scale deforestation and agricultural development.
On the highland plateaus that drain into the Pantanal, nearly 60% of the cerrado forests have been cleared and converted to cash crops (e.g., soy, corn, and cotton) or exotic (non-native) pasturelands during the last 50 years. These cerrado forest formations (i.e., savanna forests typical of seasonal plateau regions) comprised the second largest forest biome in Brazil (after the Amazon), but are currently threatened, since 55% of their original 2,000,000 km2 have been converted to agriculture during the last 35 years.
On the Pantanal flood plain, conversion of the cerrado-dominated forests to exotic cattle pasture has been less extensive, but has accelerated during the last 15 years.
We are also investigating the effects of deforestation on peccaries within the Pantanal and in the highly fragmented cerrado by comparing data from our previous studies.
These contrasts should help clarify how the ecology and behavior of peccaries are altered in fragmented landscapes. Finally, because peccaries require large ranges and use a variety of habitat types, conservation efforts that target them will benefit a wide range of other species.
Because the Pantanal is a diverse, productive ecosystem of spatial and temporal extremes, it will be important to carry out similar studies in areas that differ with respect to resources (i.e. vegetation/habitat types) and land-use practices. To accomplish this, we are expanding the scope of the study to include additional sites and collaborating researchers.
The project presented proposes to evaluate the direct and indirect impacts of a changing cattle industry on key species, and their resources, in the Pantanal. Inadequate and inefficient management practices are placing great pressure on natural resources in the Brazilian Pantanal and are driving harmful habitat conversions and the decline of important landscape wildlife.
By comparing pristine regions with cattle-impacted sites, we will identify biodiversity losses, recommend habitat restoration measures, generate technical tools to improve the ranchers’ cattle management practices, and help traditional landowners with their ecotourism establishments by increasing the biodiversity on their land.
More recently, the project has been leading groundbreaking research on WLP population genetics, using microsatellites to evaluate the degree of genetic variability and population structure of WLP from two locations 80 km apart in the southern Pantanal. Analyses of these data provided the first evidence that these two populations effectively comprise a larger metapopulation, with gene flow occurring between them. These findings have profound implications for the conservation of the species.
Deterministic pressures, such as hunting or habitat degradation near fragment edges, and stochastic events, like severe dry seasons, fires, or epidemics are the key threats to persistence of these populations.