Área de uso, uso do espaço e padrão de atividades de Bradypus tridactylus (Pilosa: bradypodidae) em um fragmento florestal na Amazônia Central

Abstract

Studying the lives of animals is important since it assists in obtaining information about ecology, life history, social organization, foraging, food preferences and reproduction, basic and essential elements within the habitat. Equally important, they are research that aims to clarify aspects of the activity pattern, since it allows to understand the interactions between organisms and their respective habitats that is the basis of any conservation activity. The research was carried out in the forest fragment of the Federal University of Amazonas, Central Amazonia, with an area of 776 ha. Our objectives were to estimate the area of use of the Bradypus tridactylus sloths with the help of two data collection techniques and to verify possible behavioral pattern throughout the 24 hour cycle. For comparative measurements, radio telemetry monitoring techniques using VHF transmitters and VHF + GPS logger transmitters were used, the area of use was estimated using two methods, the minimum polygon convex (MPC) as well as Kernel. Areas of Bradypus tridactylus ranged from 1.3ha to 28ha for Kernel and from 1.3ha to 26ha for Minimo convex polygon (MPC) for GPS monitoring. VHF telemetry ranged from 0.59ha to 50.49ha for Kernel and from 0.27 to 10.53ha for MPC. Sloths with smaller body sizes showed larger areas of use and this can be explained by being young animals in search of territories. Sloths used the space in order to return to previously used sites, showing a possible optimal foraging strategy, which may be related to the distribution of plant species used in the diet. For the activity pattern, the most frequent behavior was rest with 81% corroborating with other researches already performed with sloths. Rest mostly occurred at night and dawn while the other behaviors occurred in the morning and afternoon. The behavioral difference between individuals can be explained by individual oscillation or environmental variation. In general, sloths presented a pattern of catemeral activities,since they moved in both day and night, however, behaviors such as wakefulness and self-seeding seem to be influenced by photoperiodic changes.