Movement ecology of vulnerable lowland tapirs between areas of varying human disturbance

Abstract

Background Animal movement is a key ecological process that is tightly coupled to local environmental conditions. While agriculture, urbanisation, and transportation infrastructure are critical to human socio-economic improvement, these have spurred substantial changes in animal movement across the globe with potential impacts on fitness and survival. Notably, however, human disturbance can have differential effects across species, and responses to human activities are thus largely taxa and context specific. As human disturbance is only expected to worsen over the next decade it is critical to better understand how species respond to human disturbance in order to develop effective, case-specific conservation strategies. Methods Here, we use an extensive telemetry dataset collected over 22 years to fill a critical knowledge gap in the movement ecology of lowland tapirs (Tapirus terrestris) across areas of varying human disturbance within three biomes in southern Brazil: the Pantanal, Cerrado, and Atlantic Forest. Results From these data we found that the mean home range size across all monitored tapirs was 8.31 km2 (95% CI 6.53–10.42), with no evidence that home range sizes differed between sexes nor age groups. Interestingly, although the Atlantic Forest, Cerrado, and Pantanal vary substantially in habitat composition, levels of human disturbance, and tapir population densities, we found that lowland tapir movement behaviour and space use were consistent across all three biomes. Human disturbance also had no detectable effect on lowland tapir movement. Lowland tapirs living in the most altered habitats we monitored exhibited movement behaviour that was comparable to that of tapirs living in a near pristine environment. Conclusions Contrary to our expectations, although we observed individual variability in lowland tapir space use and movement, human impacts on the landscape also had no measurable effect on their movement. Lowland tapir movement behaviour thus appears to exhibit very little phenotypic plasticity in response to human disturbance. Crucially, the lack of any detectable response to anthropogenic disturbance suggests that human modified habitats risk being ecological traps for tapirs and this information should be factored into conservation actions and species management aimed towards protecting lowland tapir populations.

Spatial and Temporal Adaptations of Lowland Tapirs (Tapirus terrestris) to Environmental and Anthropogenic Impacts

“…This could be the case in areas with higher livestock densities. Lowland tapirs require quite large home ranges, with sizes varying between 1 km² and 29.7 km² [ 31 ]; thus, avoiding cattle areas might not always be an option. A shift toward less diurnal and more nocturnal activity at sites without cattle, as observed at SESC, might be an effective strategy to avoid disturbance by a few cattle (and associated human activity) and to increase the use of sites during the main activity phase.…”

“…To date, little is known about the impact of human activities on lowland tapirs in the Pantanal [ 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 ]. The region is considered an important stronghold for the tapir population [ 27 ], and compared to other Brazilian biomes, the Pantanal is still in a rather pristine condition, with up to 89.55% natural vegetation [ 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 ].…”

“…The species also uses degraded habitats and anthropologically used areas, and is present in disturbed and secondary forests, tree plantations and agricultural land [ 28 , 57 , 68 ]. Recent studies indicate that lowland tapirs show little response to human or cattle interference [ 29 , 30 ], but also that the species might lack differentiated behavior in areas with varying disturbance, which could risk human-altered habitats becoming ecological traps [ 31 ]. In contrast, there is also evidence that lowland tapirs respond spatially to human disturbance [ 13 , 62 , 69 , 70 , 71 ], but several studies suggest that natural factors play a more important role in the activity and occurrence of lowland tapirs than human disturbances [ 32 , 65 , 72 , 73 ].…”

“…Existing studies on the species behavior cover periods of up to 2 years [ 32 , 64 , 65 , 78 ], but were often only conducted over several months [ 29 , 30 , 33 , 63 , 66 , 67 , 73 ]. Currently, Medici et al [ 31 ] provides the longest data collection, covering the impressive period of 22 years.…”

Island Life: Use of Activity Budgets and Visibility to Evaluate a Multi-Species Within-Zoo Exhibit Move

“…During the post-move condition, individuals had access to two indoor areas (one off-show: 110 m 2 , one on-show: 144 m 2 ) and two outdoor open-air paddocks (655 m 2 and 311 m 2 , including a 37 m 2 pool area) ( Appendix B , Figure A8 ). Species-appropriate facilities included two large pools for swimming, deep enough to allow full submersion, bark substrate flooring and live trees and shrubs in the outdoor paddocks to increase the complexity of the environment [ 36 , 37 ]. Individuals were able to move away from public viewing areas within this exhibit, with off-show pens and a dividing wall which allowed refuge from visitors.…”