The importance of understorey on wildlife in a brazilian eucalypt plantation

The importance of understorey on wildlife in a brazilian eucalypt plantation

Jody R. Stallings

Programa de Mestrado em Conservação, Ecologia e Manejo de Vida Silvestre, Depto. Zoologia, ICB, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais

ABSTRACT

Wildlife surveys were conducted in two stands of Eucalyptus, one homogeneous and the other with a native species understorey in the Atlantic forest region of southeastern Brazil Deforestation has reduced the original forested habitat to a patchwork of cultivated fields and mono-specific forestry plantations. Wildlife communities were depauperate in the homogeneous stand, but richer in eucalypt forest with native species understorey. Small mammals, particularly didelphid marsupials, used the understorey rather than the eucalypt emergent trees Primates were absent from both areas. The increasing demand for charcoal for the growing steel industry in the region means that eucalypt plantations will persist until an alternative energy source is found. It is essential that management efforts be directed towards multi-use strategies in these plantations Eucalypt plantations with a native species understorey might provide sufficient habitat to support some wildlife species of the rapidly disappearing Atlantic coastal forest ecosystem.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study was funded by a Fellowship from the Organization of American States and the Program for Studies in Tropical Conservation. Logistical support was provided by the Instituto Estadual de Florestas de Minas Gerais and through the Laboratorio de Mastozoologia, Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. I thank Alair Lopes de Freitas, Eng. Florestal with the Acesita Energetica, for allowing me to sample the eucalypt forests, and to Ademir Camara Lopes, Park Administrator of PFERD, for graciously supporting my work in the Park.

I am especially grateful to John G. Robinson and Kent H. Redford for encouran-ging me to sample the eucalypt forests. Gustavo Fonseca and his field team helped to collect some of the data presented in this paper. Many field assistants from the Federal University of Minas Gerais participated directly in this project. I thank Lucio C. Bede, Ludimilla Aguiar, Luiz Paulo de Souza Pinto and Eduardo Lima Sabato. Kent Redford, Gustavo Fonseca and two anonymous reviewers improved the manuscript substantially.

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  10 Aug 2009
• Date of issue
  1990