Common opossum population density in an agroforestry system in Bolivia
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In: Acta Amazonica, Vol. 50, No. 3, 01.09.2020, p. 246-251.
Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Common opossum population density in an agroforestry system in Bolivia
AU - Benavides, Camila
AU - Arce, Alejandro
AU - Pacheco, Luis F.
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2020, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia. All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/9/1
Y1 - 2020/9/1
N2 - The common opossum, Didelphis marsupialis thrives near human settlements. Understanding its ecology could help planning management decisions about this species, especially in anthropogenic landscapes. Yet, there are no density estimations for this species throughout its distribution range in Bolivia. We estimated the density of D. marsupialis in a rural agricultural community, where agroforestry plantations and fallows cover most of the land. We counted individuals in line transects and used DISTANCE software to calculate density. We covered a total of 70.21 km in 143 night counts, obtaining 38 records of D. marsupialis. We estimated a density of 0.30 individuals ha-1 (SE = 0.062; range: 0.20 - 0.45 individuals ha-1), with a mean encounter rate of 0.54 individuals km-1. Encounter rate varied between habitats, with mean values of 0.20 in secondary forests and 0.64 in agroforestry plantations. Our density estimate is near the lower range of previously reported values for the common opossum in other countries. We argue that our results may reflect the response to the availability of food resources and predation pressure in agroforestry plantations.
AB - The common opossum, Didelphis marsupialis thrives near human settlements. Understanding its ecology could help planning management decisions about this species, especially in anthropogenic landscapes. Yet, there are no density estimations for this species throughout its distribution range in Bolivia. We estimated the density of D. marsupialis in a rural agricultural community, where agroforestry plantations and fallows cover most of the land. We counted individuals in line transects and used DISTANCE software to calculate density. We covered a total of 70.21 km in 143 night counts, obtaining 38 records of D. marsupialis. We estimated a density of 0.30 individuals ha-1 (SE = 0.062; range: 0.20 - 0.45 individuals ha-1), with a mean encounter rate of 0.54 individuals km-1. Encounter rate varied between habitats, with mean values of 0.20 in secondary forests and 0.64 in agroforestry plantations. Our density estimate is near the lower range of previously reported values for the common opossum in other countries. We argue that our results may reflect the response to the availability of food resources and predation pressure in agroforestry plantations.
KW - Ecosystems Research
KW - Didelphis marsupialis
KW - tropical agroecosystems
KW - line transect
KW - DISTANCE sampling
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85093882205&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1590/1809-4392201903532
DO - 10.1590/1809-4392201903532
M3 - Journal articles
VL - 50
SP - 246
EP - 251
JO - Acta Amazonica
JF - Acta Amazonica
SN - 0044-5967
IS - 3
ER -