Gustavo A B da Fonseca

Global Environment Facility · Natural Resources

New remote sensing data on vegetation cover and restoration opportunities bring hope to the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, one of the hottest of the 36 global biodiversity hotspots. Available estimates of remaining vegetation cover in the biome currently range from 11% to 16%. However, our new land-cover map, prepared at the highest resolution ever (5m...

This study shares the experience of the Integrated Conservation Program for the black-faced lion tamarin, Leontopithecus caissara, on measuring its conservation success. We present the program history and evaluate its impact from 2005 until 2014 in the Ariri region, at Cananeia, São Paulo, Brazil. To assess impact we combined an evaluation of the E...

We report on (i) new group formation, (ii) sex differences in dispersal and (iii) dispersal distance over 6 years for 3 social groups of the black-faced lion tamarin (Leontopithecus caissara) in the vicinity of Ariri, São Paulo state, Brazil. The groups were: Bina (monitored for 74 months), BM5 (52 months) and Teca (13 months). Each group was censu...

Protected areas are the foundation of any national strategy for biodiversity conservation. Brazil has a system of more than 670 conservation units of diverse management categories, totalling about 60 million hectares. In this paper we argue that protected areas, specifically those of restricted use, have a single and pivotal objective: to conserve...

The plight of deep-sea ecosystems in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) has been persistently overlooked. As a consequence, they remain very poorly protected despite calls for action dating back more than a decade. In 2002, the United Nations General Assembly called upon intergovernmental

If the growing needs of humans are to be met, food production must increase; however, increasing food production will further compromise biodiversity. Can this seemingly irreconcilable conflict be mitigated? The solutions proposed so far include reducing food waste and closing yield gaps. Here, we investigate an alternative approach to reducing the...

The development of standards, data sharing, and initiatives like the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and others have advanced research in many fields, including in conservation of biodiversity. Global assessments of extinction risk to species have been completed by IUCN for multiple taxa. The IUCN global assessments have had a major impact...

Em 1996 foi publicada a primeira revisão consolidada sobre a diversidade de espécies de mamíferos no Brasil. Aqui, mantivemos a estrutura padrão da publicação de 1996, porém incorporando algumas informações adicionais, como a indicação do número de espécies por gênero e por família, o nome comum em português e inglês, a indicação de endemismo no Br...

The first edition of this listing of Brazilian mammals was published in 1996. The Lista Anotada dos Mamíferos do Brasil (Fonseca et al., 1996) provided the names of 524 species along with certain biological and ecological characteristics (body weight, diet, locomotor habit and the biomes where they are known to occur), and was for many years the pr...

The conservation of species is one of the foundations of conservation biology. Successful species conservation has often been defined as simply the avoidance of extinction. We argue that this focus, although important, amounts to practicing conservation at the “emergency room door,” and will never be a sufficient approach to conserving species. Ins...

Assessing Biodiversity Declines Understanding human impact on biodiversity depends on sound quantitative projection. Pereira et al. (p. 1496 , published online 26 October) review quantitative scenarios that have been developed for four main areas of concern: species extinctions, species abundances and community structure, habitat loss and degradati...

Definition of source sites. (0.08 MB DOC)

Estimating financial costs for effective protection and monitoring at source sites, and present expenditures. (0.06 MB DOC)

Source sites listed by country. (0.07 MB XLS)

Recent climate talks in Copenhagen reaffirmed the crucial role of reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD). Creating and strengthening indigenous lands and other protected areas represents an effective, practical, and immediate REDD strategy that addresses both biodiversity and climate crises at once.

Threatened species assessments are one of the tools used to evaluate the degree of human impact on biodiversity, particularly in the assignment of extinction probabilities to individual species. Heavily altered habitats or biomes harbor a high proportion of the threatened species that have been assessed globally—80% of all of threatened species in...

Conservation planning analyses show a striking progression from endeavors targeted at single species or at individual sites, to the systematic assessment of entire taxa at large scales. These, in turn, inform wide-reaching conservation policies and financial investments. The latter are epitomized by global-scale prioritization frameworks, such as t...

We identified 100 scientific questions that, if answered, would have the greatest impact on conservation practice and policy. Representatives from 21 international organizations, regional sections and working groups of the Society for Conservation Biology, and 12 academics, from all continents except Antarctica, compiled 2291 questions of relevance...

Conservation efforts are only as sustainable as the social and political context within which they take place. The weakening or collapse of sociopolitical frameworks during wartime can lead to habitat destruction and the erosion of conservation policies, but in some cases, may also confer ecological benefits through altered settlement patterns and...

Knowledge of mammalian diversity is still surprisingly disparate, both regionally and taxonomically. Here, we present a comprehensive assessment of the conservation status and distribution of the world's mammals. Data, compiled by 1700+ experts, cover all 5487 species, including marine mammals. Global macroecological patterns are very different for...

Knowledge of mammalian diversity is still surprisingly disparate, both regionally and taxonomically. Here, we present a comprehensive assessment of the conservation status and distribution of the world's mammals. Data, compiled by 1700+ experts, cover all 5487 species, including marine mammals. Global macroecological patterns are very different for...

Systematic conservation planning aims to identify comprehensive protected area networks that together will minimize biodiversity loss. Importantly, conservation planners seek to determine where to allocate limited resources first, particularly given the uneven spread of, and threats to, biodiversity. The International Union for the Conservation of...

The spatial scale of conservation necessary to avoid species extinctions is one of the most vigorous debates in conservation biology. One approach holds that protecting sites should be the primary level for action on the ground, the other that conservation action targeting broader seascapes and landscapes is more important. We address this debate s...

Empirical evidence of individual vocal recognition has been reported for the Amazonian manatee (Trichechus inunguis) and the West Indian manatee (T. manatus). Underwater vocalizations of 15 Antillean manatees (T. m. manatus) were recorded to verify if this subspecies also conveys individual information through their calls. The isolation calls selec...

Habitat destruction has driven much of the current biodiversity extinction crisis, and it compromises the essential benefits, or ecosystem services, that humans derive from functioning ecosystems. Securing both species and ecosystem services might be accomplished with common solutions. Yet it is unknown whether these two major conservation objectiv...

Aim Relationships between range size and species richness are contentious, yet they are key to testing the various hypotheses that attempt to explain latitudinal diversity gradients. Our goal is to utilize the largest data set yet compiled for New World woody plant biogeography to describe and assess these relationships between species richness and...

Mitigating climate change by reducing deforestation should involve incentives for countries that currently have high forest cover and low deforestation rates.

Habitat destruction and fragmentation severely affected the Atlantic Forest. Formerly contiguous populations may become subdivided into a larger number of smaller populations, threatening their long-term persistence. The computer package VORTEX was used to simulate the consequences of habitat fragmentation and population subdivision on Micoureus pa...

The Rufous-capped Antthrush, Formicarius colma Boddaert, 1783, is a ground dwelling species of bird commonly associated with moist forests. With a wide range in South America, it is nevertheless considered a rare species within the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. During a camera-trapping study in the Parque Estadual do Rio Doce, spanning a 17 mont...

Conservation in densely settled biodiversity hotspots often requires setting up reserve networks that maintain sufficient contiguous habitat to support viable species populations. Because it is difficult to secure landholder compliance with a tightly constrained reserve network design, attention has shifted to voluntary incentive mechanisms, such a...

The location of and threats to biodiversity are distributed unevenly, so prioritization is essential to minimize biodiversity loss. To address this need, biodiversity conservation organizations have proposed nine templates of global priorities over the past decade. Here, we review the concepts, methods, results, impacts, and challenges of these pri...

A population viability analysis (PVA) using the computer package VORTEX was conducted to assess the minimum viable population (MVP) of the Atlantic Forest endemic marsupial Micoureus paraguayanus. The objectives were: to estimate demographic and genetic MVPs that could be used as quasi-extinction thresholds for future modeling, to estimate the mini...

Brazil, with nearly 1/3 of the world’s remaining tropical rainforests (Atlantic Forest and Amazon) is now recognized as one of the most important repositories of biological diversity in the world. Unfortunately, these areas are being rapidly converted to other uses. Official figures indicate that deforestation has affected about 12% of the Amazon a...

Amazonia is the largest and most diverse of the tropical forest wilderness areas. Recent compilations indicate at least 40,000 plant species, 427 mammals, 1294 birds, 378 reptiles, 427 amphibians, and around 3,000 fishes. Not homogeneous in its plant and animal communities, it is an archipelago of distinct areas of endemism separated by the major r...

Phylogeny is a potentially powerful tool for conserving biodiversity. This book explores how it can be used to tackle questions of great practical importance and urgency for conservation. Using case studies from many different taxa and regions of the world, the volume evaluates how useful phylogeny is in understanding the processes that have genera...

Protected areas are the single most important conservation tool. The global protected-area network has grown substantially in recent decades, now occupying 11.5% of Earth's land surface, but such growth has not been strategically aimed at maximizing the coverage of global biodiversity. In a previous study, we demonstrated that the global network is...

Protected-area targets of 10% of a biome, of a country, or of the planet have often been used in conservation planning. The new World Database on Protected Areas shows that terrestrial protected-area coverage now approaches 12% worldwide. Does this mean that the establishment of new protected areas can cease? This was the core question of the “Buil...

We determined the diet of the brown-nosed coati (Nasua nasua) in an urban semideciduous forest fragment in southeastern Brazil. Coati feces were collected weekly for 3 years. The 226 fecal samples included plant parts (85.4%), insects (75.7%), millipedes (53.9%), fruits (48.7%), spiders (33.6%), organic waste (9.7%), vertebrates (9.3%), and gastrop...

We determined the diet of the brown-nosed coati (Nasua nasua) in an urban semideciduous forest fragment in southeastern Brazil. Coati feces were collected weekly for 3 years. The 226 fecal samples included plant parts (85.4%), insects (75.7%), millipedes (53.9%), fruits (48.7%), spiders (33.6%), organic waste (9.7%), vertebrates (9.3%), and gastrop...

The Fifth World Parks Congress in Durban, South Africa, announced in September 2003 that the global network of protected areas now covers 11.5% of the planet's land surface. This surpasses the 10% target proposed a decade earlier, at the Caracas Congress, for 9 out of 14 major terrestrial biomes. Such uniform targets based on percentage of area hav...

Agroforestry -- the practice of integrating trees and other large woody perennials on farms and throughout the agricultural landscape -- is increasingly recognized as a useful and promising strategy that diversifies production for greater social, economic, and environmental benefits. Agroforestry and Biodiversity Conservation in Tropical Landscapes...

Open access is vital to the progress of scientific thought and advancement of many disciplines, but particularly so for conservation science.

Human pressure threatens many species and ecosystems, so conservation efforts necessarily prioritize saving them. However, conservation should clearly be proactive wherever possible. In this article, we assess the biodiversity conservation value, and specifically the irreplaceability in terms of species endemism, of those of the planet's ecosystems...

1 Royama, T. (1992) Analytical Population Dynamics, Chapman & Hall2 Johst, K. and Wissel, C. (1997) Extinction risk in a temporallycorrelated environment. Theor. Popul. Biol. 52, 91–1003 McCarthy, M. and Lindenmayer, D.B. (2000) Spatially correlatedextinction in a metapopulation model of Leadbeater’s Possum. Biodiv.Conserv. 9, 47–634 Engen, S. et a...

Before widespread, informed collaboration can take place in conservation there must be a process of understanding the different approaches employed by different conservation organizations to conserve biodiversity. To begin this process and to help build understanding and collaboration, we provide a conceptual map of 21 approaches currently being im...

Nearly half the world's vascular plant species and one-third of terrestrial vertebrates are endemic to 25 “hotspots” of biodiversity, each of which has at least 1500 endemic plant species. None of these hotspots have more than one-third of their pristine habitat remaining. Historically, they covered 12% of the land's surface, but today their intact...

Habitat loss and fragmentation are the principal drivers of biodiversity loss, notably in the tropics ([1][1]). One of the most immediate results of fragmentation is the loss of top predators. As early as 12 years ago, evidence was provided for top-down effects of predator removal in tropical forest

Species diversity is unevenly distributed across the globe, with terrestrial diversity concentrated in a few restricted biodiversity hotspots. These areas are associated with high losses of primary vegetation and increased human population density, resulting in growing numbers of threatened species. We show that conservation of these hotspots is cr...