Tayra (Eira barbara) landscape use as a function of cover types, forest protection, and the presence of puma and free‐ranging dogs

Abstract

The tayra (Eira barbara) is a common and broadly distributed Neotropical carnivore, yet is not well-studied. While this species is apparently associated with forested habitats, it also appears tolerant of some anthropogenic disturbance. We deployed 57 unbaited camera traps (n = 4923 trap-days) in and around a protected area (Furnas do Bom Jesus State Park, São Paulo, Brazil) to survey for tayra and two potentially interactive species: puma (Puma concolor) and free-ranging dogs (Canis familiaris).We used encounter histories generated from photographs and occupancy models to quantify tayra landscape use in the human-dominated landscape composed of the protected area that was near a city and surrounded by agricultural lands dominated by small farms. We fit co-occurrence models to understand whether puma and freeranging dogs affected landscape use by tayra. We detected tayra at 44% of sites and found that tayra landscape use increased with the proportion of forest cover within 500 m of the sampling site. Other factors predicting tayra landscape use included whether the sampling site was within the protected area, its distance to water, and slope. Dogs, which are common on the periphery of the protected area, seem to have a weak negative effect on tayra landscape use. Because of the concentration of forest within the park, this is an important protected area for the carnivore population within this human-modified landscape. Thus, environmental variables, such as forest cover, distance to water, as well as administrative protection status, are important for understanding local-scale tayra distribution.

Forest cover is more important than habitat integrity or landscape configuration in determining habitat use by mammals in a human-modified landscape in Colombia

“…Since Core Area also had a strong effect, it is apparent that the lowland paca distribution is not affected by edge effect issues, as opposed to the tayra that was strongly and positively affected by this variable and tended to increase habitat use in more homogeneous landscapes. Although tayra is a relatively common species in anthropogenic landscapes, our results highlight that they tend to occupy larger interior habitats inside the forest, which goes in accordance with Bianchi et al (2021) findings in a heterogeneous landscape in Brazil. The crab-eating fox habitat use was greater in areas with low forest integrity and more heterogeneous composition, confirming its flexibility to move across anthropogenic landscapes (Boron et al, 2019; Pardo et al, 2019).…”

Tayra

“…In National Parks of Brazil, the presence of domestic dogs may be a threat to native species of wildlife, including the tayra, due to competition, predation, or pathogen transmission (Lessa et al 2016). Free-ranging dogs near the borders of a protected area (next to human-dominated landscape) have a weak negative effect on landscape use by tayras (Bianchi et al 2021), but the effect was stronger outside of this area. The scansorial behavior of tayras can be a strategy to reduce interactions with competitors and predators without the ability to climb trees.…”

“…Tayras occur in a wide variety of habitat conditions across its distribution, such as tropical and subtropical forests, secondary rain forests, gallery forests, gardens, plantations, cloud forests, and dry scrub forests (Emmons and Freer 1990;Table 57.2), which is evidence of their ecological plasticity. The species can live near human settlements (Hall and Dalquest 1963), and seems tolerant of some anthropogenic disturbance (Bianchi et al 2021)…”