Small Prey Animal Habitat Use in Landscapes of Fear: Effects of Predator Presence and Human Activity Along an Urban Disturbance Gradient

Human activity can impose additional stressors to wildlife, both directly and indirectly, including through the introduction of predators and influences on native predators. As urban and adjacent environments are becoming increasingly valuable habitat for wildlife, it is important to understand how susceptible taxa, like small prey animals, persist in urban environments under such additional stressors. Here, in order to determine how small prey animals’ foraging patterns change in response to habitat components and distances to predators and human disturbances, we used filmed giving-up density (GUD) trials under natural conditions along an urban disturbance gradient. We then ran further GUD trials with the addition of experimentally introduced stressors of: the odors of domestic cat (Felis catus)/red fox (Vulpes vulpes) as predator cues, light and sound as human disturbance cues, and their combinations. Small mammals were mostly observed foraging in the GUD trials, and to a lesser degree birds. Animals responded to proximity to predators and human disturbances when foraging under natural conditions, and used habitat components differently based on these distances. Along the urban disturbance gradient situation-specific responses were evident and differed under natural conditions compared to additional stressor conditions. The combined predator with human disturbance treatments resulted in responses of higher perceived risk at environments further from houses. Animals at the urban-edge environment foraged more across the whole site under the additional stressor conditions, but under natural conditions perceived less risk when foraging near predators and further from human disturbance (houses). Contrastingly, at the environments further from houses, foraging near human disturbance (paths/roads) when close to a predator was perceived as lower risk, but when foraging under introduced stressor conditions these disturbances were perceived as high risk. We propose that sensory and behavioral mechanisms, and stress exposure best explain our findings. Our results indicate that habitat components could be managed to reduce the impacts of high predation pressure and human activity in disturbed environments.

On the relationships between rarity, uniqueness, distinctiveness, originality and functional/phylogenetic diversity

Rarity reflects the low abundance of a species while distinctiveness reflects its quality of being easy to recognize because it has unique functional characteristics and/or an isolated phylogenetic position. As such, the assemblage-level rarity of a species' functional and phylogenetic characteristics (that we name 'effective originality') results from both the rarity and the distinctiveness of this species. The functional and phylogenetic diversity of an assemblage then results from a compromise between the abundances and the effective originalities of the species it contains. Although the distinctiveness of a species itself depends on the abundance of the other species in the assemblage, distinctiveness indices that are available in the ecological literature scarcely consider abundance data. We develop a unifying framework that demonstrates the direct connections between measures of diversity, rarity, distinctiveness and effective originality. While developing our framework, we discovered a family of distinctiveness indices that permit a full control of the influence one wants to give to the strict uniqueness of a species (=its smallest functional or phylogenetic distance to another species in the assemblage). Illustrating our framework with bat phylogenetic diversity along a disturbance gradient in Mexico, we show how each component of rarity, distinctiveness and originality can be controlled to obtain efficient indicators for conservation. Overall our framework is aimed to improve conservation actions directed towards highly diverse areas and/or towards species whose loss would considerably decrease biodiversity by offering flexible quantitative tools where the influence of abundant versus rare, and ordinary versus original, species is understood and controlled.

Effect of the matrix-edge-forest interior gradient on the phyllostomid bats assemblage in sub-Andean forest fragments

The edge effect is one of the consequences of forest fragmentation and is one of the main drivers of alteration of ecological and ecosystem processes. Trophic guilds and species of bats have shown differential responses to this phenomenon. Our goal was to describe the change in bat species richness, abundance, evenness, and species composition of trophic guilds associated with a matrix edge-forest interior gradient. Therefore, we conducted a bat sampling with 16 mist nets covering such gradient in four sub-andean forest fragments (10-50 ha). In total, we captured 566 individuals of 21 species of phyllostomid bats. Bat species richness and abundance were higher in the matrix and edge and were similar between fragments. Evenness showed the lowest values in the matrix and forest edge and was different between forest patches. Some shrub frugivorous bats were more abundant in the edge, and others were more abundant in two fragments. Species composition of canopy frugivorous bats was similar along the gradient but was significantly different between fragments. In contrast, the species composition of nectarivores was similar throughout the matrix-interior forest gradient and between patches. Our data suggest that bat responses at assemblage-level are affected by the disturbance gradient from the matrix to forest interior, even at short distances form fragment borders, and are dependent on the trophic guild.