Effects of a sprawling city in the viability of the black-horned capuchin

• Ano de defesa: 2022
• Autor(a) principal: Sanches, Pollyana Veronica Wenzel
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Biblioteca Digitais de Teses e Dissertações da USP
• Palavras-chave em Português: Sapajus nigritus; Análise de viabilidade populacional; Expansão urbana; Population viability analysis; Urban sprawl; Vortex
• Link de acesso: https://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/91/91131/tde-10022023-113200/

As the human population is expected to increase further in the subsequent decades, the urban area is also expected to increase worldwide. Therefore, this will result in habitat loss and anthropogenic impacts on wildlife in protected areas located close to urban zones, already impacted by other landscape-altering activities such as agriculture and forestry. Forest cover reduction due to habitat loss and fragmentation can impact, in particular, arboreal animals such as primates, with 75% of all species declining due to human activities. This study aimed to assess the viability of the black-horned capuchin monkey (Sapajus nigritus) population living in a small and disturbed protected area progressively engulfed by city sprawl in southeastern Brazil. We did this with population viability analysis using VORTEX, first creating a baseline scenario and then evaluating how different management actions would hamper the negative impacts resulting from forest disturbance, urban proximity, and associated threats. We also assessed the models sensitivity to uncertain demographic parameters. Our results showed that female reproduction has the most significant impact on the stochastic growth of the population and that an efficient firefighting response could diminish the impact expected by the likely increase in wildfire incidence through climate change. If not mitigated, a slight increase in mortality rates (5% or greater) resulting from urban threats such as roadkill, electrocution, and conflict with humans and dogs can lead the population to local extinction. The study population is demographically viable in most scenarios, but mitigation actions must be implemented in order to also achieve genetic viability. The best option would be to combine forest restoration with population supplementation, improving the carrying capacity and maintaining genetic diversity in the long term.