Niche opportunity created by land cover change is driving the European hare invasion in the Neotropics

Autor(es)

Pasqualotto, Nielson ^{[1, 2, 3]} ; Boscolo, Danilo ^{[1, 4]} ; Versiani, Natalia F. ^[1] ; Paolino, Roberta M. ^{[2, 3]} ; Rodrigues, Thiago F. ^{[2, 3]} ; Krepschi, Victor G. ^[5] ; Chiarello, Adriano G. ^[1]

Afiliação do(s) autor(es)

^[1] Univ Sao Paulo, Fac Filosofia Ciencias & Letras Ribeirao Preto, Dept Biol, Ribeirao Preto, SP - Brazil

^[2] Univ Sao Paulo, Programa Interunidades Posgrad Ecol Aplicada PPGI, Escola Super Agr Luiz de Queiroz ESALQ USP, Piracicaba, SP - Brazil

^[3] Univ Sao Paulo, Ctr Energia Nucl Agr CENA USP, Piracicaba, SP - Brazil

^[4] Natl Inst Sci & Technol Interdisciplinary & Trans, Salvador, BA - Brazil

^[5] Univ Estadual Paulista UNESP, Inst Biociencias, Rio Claro, SP - Brazil

• Tipo de documento: Artigo Científico
• Fonte: Biological Invasions; v. 23, n. 1 SEP 2020.
• Citações Web of Science: 0

Resumo

The European hare (Lepus europaeus) was introduced in the late 19th century in Argentina and has since rapidly expanded northwards, currently occupying the Brazilian south and southeast. Although European hare is known to be a farmland specialist in its native Europe, what habitat types or landscape features are facilitating its expansion in the Neotropics are not yet clear. Here we assessed support to the disturbance and biotic resistance hypotheses as general drivers of this invasion. We sampled with camera-traps and track surveys 205 sites in three landscapes in southeastern Brazil. We used occupancy models that corrected for both false positive and false negative errors. The disturbance hypothesis was the top-ranked (w = 0.66) with the amount of field, sugarcane, and managed forests all affecting strongly and positively hare occupancy. Support to the biotic resistance hypothesis was lower (Delta AICc = 2.14; w = 0.23) and partial, since only native forests showed a negative effect on hare occupancy. Our findings indicate that in the expansion front occupancy of this invader is mainly dictated by niche opportunities created by native habitat transformation into agricultural lands. The biotic resistance imposed by remaining native habitats seems to play a secondary role and only due to native forests. We conclude that hare geographical expansion should increase given the prominent role of Brazil as a commodity producer and exporter. Nevertheless, fomenting forested protected areas and improving adherence of rural owners to the Brazilian Forest Act, which protects forests in private rural properties, might help lessen this spread. (AU)

• Processo FAPESP: 11/22449-4 - Conservação do tamanduá-bandeira nos remanescentes de cerrado do Nordeste do estado de São Paulo: ocupação da paisagem em uma região de agricultura intensiva
• Beneficiário: Adriano Garcia Chiarello
• Modalidade de apoio: Auxílio à Pesquisa - Regular
• Processo FAPESP: 18/11788-1 - A invasão da Lebre Europeia e sua associação com estrutura, composição e ciclo das culturas agrícolas no interior paulista
• Beneficiário: Nielson Aparecido Pasqualotto Salvador
• Modalidade de apoio: Bolsas no Brasil - Doutorado