ESTUDIO DE LA ABUNDANCIA RELATIVA PARA MAMÍFEROS EN DIFERENTES TIPOS DE COBERTURAS Y CARRETERA, FINCA HACIENDA CRISTALES, ÁREA CERRITOS - LA VIRGINIA, MUNICIPIO DE PEREIRA, DEPARTAMENTO DE RISARALDA - COLOMBIA

Abstract

Tropical dry forest is declining and also the possibilities to gather information useful for neotropical biodiversity conservation. In the case of Colombia there is low knowledge of mammals in this type of ecosystems. Based on the latter mammals relative abundance was evaluated in dry forest fragment in the “Hacienda Cristales” Cerritos - La Virginia¨ area, Pereira, Risaralda - Colombia. Field surveys were madeduring 3 months, with 900 hours of total sample effort using two approaches: 1) Sign records based on tracks, sightings, scats, in 7.621,70 m of trail which included covers like secondary forest, crop, grazing land, and road as habitat features, and 2) Sign searching using 87 footprint traps with bait stations put in different cover types where tracks were checked.Mammal signs of Alouatta seniculus, Agouti paca, Cebus capucinus, Choloepus hoffmanni, Dasyprocta punctata, Dasypus novemcinctus, Dasyprocta punctata, Didelphis marsupialis and Urocyon cinereoargenteus species were found. From the latter the first five were found in secondary forest, D. novemcinctus in secondary forest and grazing land, D. marsupialis in secondary forest, road and crop,and U. cinereoargenteus in all cover types, mainly secondary forest. The last species showed greatest relative abundance values. Secondary forest showed data from all 8 species. Traps were less effective than trail to catch abundance data.Results show any kind of relative abundance biases by species, by cover type, and roads as habitat feature. It must be taken in to account that relative abundance values could be been affected by human settlements,species and area features but by methodology itself too.