When the imperilled prevail: monitoring terrestrial mammals with camera traps in a private protected area from the Central Andes of Colombia
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Leveraging data on mammal diversity helps to implement conservation actions to promote ecosystem integrity, and camera traps are useful tools in such a task, especially in global biodiversity hotspots. We quantified medium and large-sized mammal diversity and activity in a private reserve recovering from cattle-ranched degraded land in the Central Andes of Colombia. We installed 30 camera traps (9.1 km 2 ) and accumulated 10,817 trap-nights between September 2023 and December 2024 to detect 16 species of mammals, including domestic dogs. Threatened species such as Tapirus pinchaque , Leopardus pardinoides and Nasua olivacea were representative mammals in the survey, detected in 97–100 % of stations (33 % of species detected were threatened with extinction). Diversity was high compared to similar landscapes, and the survey effort detected 99–100 % of the large and medium-size mammal assemblage. The diel niche of eleven of the 16 species detected was cathemeral (46 %), followed by diurnal (36 %), and nocturnal (18 %). We have demonstrated the value of private protected areas established in degraded lands to safeguard a representative mammal community from the Andean cloud forests of Colombia. Presence of dogs with their potential to interact negatively with native medium and large-sized mammals stresses the need to implement management actions on their populations.
Source: Mammalia
Language: English
Subfield: Ecology
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Life on land
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,712
OpenAlex ID: W7224428188