Abstract

GARCIA-BURGOS, Jorge; GALLINA, Sonia  and  GONZALEZ-ROMERO, Alberto. Relationship between richness of médium-sized mammals and the spatial heterogeneity in coffee plantations of central Veracruz. Acta Zool. Mex [online]. 2014, vol.30, n.2, pp.337-356. ISSN 2448-8445.

Coffee plantations are biologically and economically important agrosystems at both national and international level, and they are one of the main crops in central Veracruz which have replaced the cloud forest, however they are able to retain some of the original biodiversity of the region. In order to analyze the patterns between alpha, beta and gamma diversity of medium-sized mammals, and spatial heterogeneity of coffee plantations along a management gradient, there were considered registers from tracks, camera-traps, Tomahawk traps, and also information obtained from people who live around five coffee plantations (1 diverse polyculture, three simple polyculture and one unshaded coffee plantation) and two fragments of cloud forest as control in two areas: Coatepec and Huatusco. The spatial heterogeneity was measured through landscape variables that involved human population, roads density, Normalized Differential Vegetation Index and interspersion and juxtaposition of habitats in a buffer area of 2 km around the sampling sites. Alpha diversity was affected by spatial heterogeneity as negative correlations were found between mammal richness and total human population and the percentage of open areas, as well, on the other side, negative correlations were found between the percentage of shadow emerging vegetation (several crops and secondary vegetation) and juxtaposition of habitats. Alpha diversity varied from 5 to 13 species, while beta diversity, percentage of complementarity varied from 9.09% to 84.61 %, and gamma diversity of landscape was 15 species. A cluster analysis showed that Huatusco has features that are different from Coatepec, as less roads impact and less human population in addition the sites with greater intermediate shade cover are more adequate to conservation due a high species diversity in which six species were at some risk.

Keywords : Cloud forest; coffee plantation; medium sized mammals; diversity and spatial heterogeneity.

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