Medium and large mammals of Caparaó National Park, southeastern Brazil

Abstract

. Brazil is considerate one of the countries with the highest diversity of mammals in the world. However, there are still many gaps in the knowledge of the ecology of mammalian species and because they are threatened by anthropic activities, it becomes increasingly necessary to gather information that contributes to their conservation. We characterized the medium and large-sized mammals in the Caparaó National Park (CNP), by analyzing species richness and frequency of records (hereafter abundance) in the two main vegetation types (i.e., Ombrophilous Forest and High Elevation Grasslands) found in the park. We carried out active searches and installed camera traps associated with sand-plots in 30 sampling sites. We performed rarefaction curves to verify that the sampling effort was sufficient to characterize species richness of the CNP, and we ordered the data obtained for species composition and abundance using a Non-Metric Multidimensional Scaling and assessed the relationship between the season (dry and rainy seasons) and vegetation types on mammalian species richness with a two-way analysis of variance. We recorded 34 native species of medium and large mammals and one exotic species ( Canis lupus familiaris ). Species composition and abundance differed between vegetation types. The Ombrophilous Forest presented higher species richness than the High Elevation Grasslands, which demonstrates that the medium and large mammalian community may be influenced by the environmental complexity. The CNP holds a rich community of medium and large mammals, with many endemic and endangered species of the Atlantic Forest.