Wild canids and the ecological traps facing the climate change and deforestation in the Amazon Forest

Geovana Linhares de Oliveira; Arleu Barbosa Viana-Junior; Paulo Henrique Santos Trindade; Iara Ramos Dos Santos; Paula Cristina R de Almeida-Maués; Fernando Geraldo Carvalho; Daniel Paiva Silva; Øystein Wiig; Leonardo Sena; Ana Cristina Mendes-Oliveira

doi:10.1002/ece3.10150

Wild canids and the ecological traps facing the climate change and deforestation in the Amazon Forest

Ecol Evol. 2023 Jun 9;13(6):e10150. doi: 10.1002/ece3.10150. eCollection 2023 Jun.

Affiliations

¹ Laboratório de Ecologia e Zoologia de Vertebrados - LABEV, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas Universidade Federal do Pará Belém Pará Brazil.
² Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia e Conservação da Universidade Estadual da Paraíba - UEPB Campina Grande - PB Brazil.
³ Centro de Estudos Avançados da Biodiversidade - CEABIO, Parque Tecnológico do Guamá Universidade Federal do Pará Belém Pará Brazil.
⁴ Unama Parque Shopping Belém Pará Brazil.
⁵ Laboratório de Ecologia e Conservação - LABECO, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas Universidade Federal do Pará Belém Pará Brazil.
⁶ COBIMA Lab, Departamento de Ciências Biológicas, Instituto Federal Goiano, Rodovia Geraldo Silva Nascimento Urutaí Goiás Brazil.
⁷ Natural History Museum University of Oslo Oslo Norway.

Abstract

Ecological traps occur when species choose to settle in lower-quality habitats, even if this reduces their survival or productivity. This happens in situations of drastic environmental changes, resulting from anthropogenic pressures. In long term, this could mean the extinction of the species. We investigated the dynamics of occurrence and distribution of three canid species (Atelocynus microtis, Cerdocyon thous, and Spheotos venaticus) considering human threats to their habitats in the Amazon Rainforest. We analyzed the environmental thresholds for the occurrence of these species and related to the future projections of climatic niches for each one. All three species will be negatively affected by climate change in the future, with losses of up to 91% of the suitable area of occurrence in the Brazilian Amazon. A. microtis appear to be more forest-dependent and must rely on the goodwill of decision-makers to be maintained in the future. For C. thous and S. venaticus, climatic variables and those associated with anthropogenic disturbances that modulate their niches today may not act the same way in the future. Even though C. thous is least dependent on the Amazon Forest; this species may be affected in the future due to the ecological traps. S. venaticus, can also undergo the same process, but perhaps more drastically due to the lower ecological plasticity of this species compared to C. thous. Our results suggest that the ecological traps may put these two species at risk in the future. Using the canid species as a model, we had the opportunity to investigate these ecological effects that can affect a large part of the Amazonian fauna in the current scenario. Considering the high degree of environmental degradation and deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest, the theory of ecological traps must be discussed at the same level as the habitat loss, considering the strategies for preserving the Amazon biodiversity.

Keywords: Atelocynus microtis (short‐eared dog); Cerdocyon thous (crab‐eating fox); Speothos venaticus (bush dog); ecological traps; general linear model (GLM); niche modeling.