Common opossum population density in an agroforestry system in Bolivia

Translated title of the contribution: Common opossum population density in an agroforestry system in Bolivia

Camila Benavides, Alejandro Arce, Luis F. Pacheco

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

The common opossum, Didelphis marsupialis thrives near human settlements. Understanding its ecology could help planning management decisions about this species, especially in anthropogenic landscapes. Yet, there are no density estimations for this species throughout its distribution range in Bolivia. We estimated the density of D. marsupialis in a rural agricultural community, where agroforestry plantations and fallows cover most of the land. We counted individuals in line transects and used DISTANCE software to calculate density. We covered a total of 70.21 km in 143 night counts, obtaining 38 records of D. marsupialis. We estimated a density of 0.30 individuals ha-1 (SE = 0.062; range: 0.20-0.45 individuals ha-1), with a mean encounter rate of 0.54 individuals km-1. Encounter rate varied between habitats, with mean values of 0.20 in secondary forests and 0.64 in agroforestry plantations. Our density estimate is near the lower range of previously reported values for the common opossum in other countries. We argue that our results may reflect the response to the availability of food resources and predation pressure in agroforestry plantations.

Translated title of the contributionCommon opossum population density in an agroforestry system in Bolivia
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)246-251
Number of pages6
JournalActa Amazonica
Volume50
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jul 2020

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia. All rights reserved.

Keywords

  • DISTANCE sampling
  • Didelphis marsupialis
  • Line transect
  • Tropical agroecosystems

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