Fragmentation puts Mexican howlers at risk
Fragmentation puts Mexican howlers at risk
mongabay.com
March 3, 2008
Forest fragmentation is putting mantled howler monkeys in southern Mexico at risk, reports a new study, published in the inaugural issue of the open access e-journal Tropical Conservation Science.
Using Population viability analysis (PVA) to forecast the probability of extinction following deforestation and fragmentation, Salvador Mandujano and Luis A. Escobedo-Morales of Mexico’s Instituto de EcologÃa found that population growth rate of mantled howler monkeys (Alouatta palliata mexicana) depends mainly on the survival of adult females. In fragments of less than 15 hectares, probability of extinction approached 60 percent.
The researchers say PVA analysis revealed two strategies for conserving howlers in the highly altered landscape of Los Tuxtlas in southern Mexico.
“The first is to protect priority fragments,” Mandujano and Escobedo-Morales told mongabay.com. “These are fragments that maintain the largest groups of howlers and that have the greatest surface area, connectivity, and habitat quality.”
“The second is to develop reforestation strategies to recover and restore habitat by increasing the area of certain occupied fragments and establishing corridors for movement between fragments.”
Mandujano and Escobedo-Morales’s paper — Population viability analysis of howler monkeys (Alouatta palliata mexicana) in a highly fragmented landscape in Los Tuxtlas, Mexico — is published in the March 3 issue of Tropical Conservation Science.
Mandujano, S. and Escobedo-Morelos, L. A. 2008. Population Viability Analysis of Howler Monkey (Alouatta palliata mexicana) in a Highly Fragmented Landscape in Los Tuxtlas, Mexico. Tropical Conservation Science 1:43-62.
This article is based on a news release from the U.N.
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