INTRODUCTION:

The northwestern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula is a conservation corridor that includes several protected areas and embraces diverse ecosystems crucial for conservation. In these sites we found a particular ecosystem called "petenes", or "forest islands" only found in the Yucatan Peninsula, Florida Peninsula and Cuba. This particular ecosystem makes the northwestern coast a priority region for conservation in Mexico. Thus, with this study on mammal population, abundance and diversity we contribute to understand the structure and dynamics of these unique ecosystems.

METHODS:

We used 20 automated camera-traps to determine relative abundance and activity patterns of medium and large mammals associated to "petenes" on the northwestern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. We carried out two sampling periods, one during the rainy season of 2013 and one during dry season in 2014.

RESULTS:

With an effort of 3,284 trap-nights we obtained 700 independent records of 16 species of mammals divided in 12 Families and 15 genera. The most abundant species were Nasua narica, Dasyprocta punctata, Cuniculus paca and Procyon lotor. In contrast, the less abundant species were Conepatus semistriatus and Ateles geoffroyi. We registered four types of activity patterns: Diurnal/Nocturnal/Crepuscular (24 h), three species; Crepuscular/Nocturnal, three species; Crepuscular/Diurnal, two species and Nocturnal, two species.

DISCUSSION:

The presence of species listed as endangered such as Leopardus pardalis, L. wiedii, Conepatus semistriatus and Ateles geoffroyi make the petenes ecosystem very valuable for the conservation of mammals species in this Mexican region.