Abundance of small mammals in the Atlantic Forest (ASMAF): a data set for analyzing tropical community patterns

Abstract

Abstract. Local abundance results from the interaction between populational and environmental processes. The abundance of the species in a community is also one of the most basic descriptors of its structure. Despite its importance, information about species abundances is fragmentary, creating a knowledge gap about species abundances known as the Prestonian Shortfall. Here we present a comprehensive data set of small mammal abundance in the Atlantic Forest. Data were extracted from 114 published sources and from unpublished data collected by our research groups spanning from 1943 to 2017. The data set includes 1,902 records of at least 111 species in 155 localities, totaling 42,617 individuals represented. We selected studies that (1) were conducted in forested habitats of the Atlantic Forest, (2) had a minimum sampling effort of at least 500 trap-nights, and (3) contained species abundance data in detail. For each study, we recorded (1) latitude and longitude, (2) name of the locality, (3) employed sampling effort, (4) type of traps used, (5) study year, (6) country, and (7) species name with (8) its respective abundances. For every locality, we also obtained information regarding its (9) ecoregion, (10) predominant vegetation type, and (11) biogeographic subdivision. Whenever necessary, we also (12) updated the species names as new species were described and some genera suffered taxonomic revision since the publication. The localities are spread across the Atlantic Forest and most of the small mammal species known to occur in Atlantic Forest are present in the data set, making it representative of communities of the entire biome. This data set can be used to address various patterns in community ecology and geographical ecology, as the relation between local abundance and environmental suitability, hypothesis regarding local and regional factors on community structuring, species abundance distributions (SAD), functional and phylogenetic mechanisms on community assembling.

Interspecific competition constrains local abundance in highly suitable areas

“… Geographic distribution and occurrences of the gray slender opossum Marmosops incanus recorded from 1990 to date. Occurrence records were obtained from museums and abundance information and species richness of non‐volant small mammals from the Abundance of Small Mammals in the Atlantic Forest (ASMAF) dataset (Figueiredo et al ).…”

“…marsupial and rodents) of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest to explore the relationships between species' abundance, environmental suitability and interspecific competition due to 1) the high diversity of mammal species in this biome; 2) the intense habitat fragmentation and other anthropogenic disturbances; and 3) the highly heterogeneous environments (e.g. elevational and latitudinal gradients) resulting in a large range of local communities' richness found in the Atlantic Forest (Figueiredo et al 2017).…”

Panorama Da Macroecologia Brasileira

“…O mesmo aplica-se às colaborações internacionais, muitas delas já em andamento no Brasil. Recentemente tem havido um esforço para compilar e disponibilizar informações básicas sobre ocorrência e abundância de diversos grupos de vertebrados em grandes extensões espaciais (e.g., Figueiredo et al 2017, Muylaert et al 2017. Assim, os estudos em escalas locais continuarão a ser primordiais para a obtenção de dados primários, sem os quais, diversos estudos em escala geográfica não poderiam ser realizados (e.g., Weber & Grelle 2012, Stevens 2013.…”

Disentangling drivers of small mammal diversity in a highly fragmented forest system

“…Non‐volant small mammals in the AF are an ideal group to study the effects of fragmentation on patterns of diversity because of their smaller home range and inability to disperse in a short amount of time. They are comprised primarily of didelphid marsupials and sigmodontine rodents (Bovendorp, McCleery, & Galetti, ; Bovendorp, Villar, et al, ; Figueiredo et al, ). These subgroups represent evolutionary lineages that entered SA at different times.…”