Vania Foster

• Phd
• Researcher at Projeto Onças do Iguaçu

We present new records of two threatened canid species, the bush dog (Speothos venaticus) and the maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus), within and in the vicinity of Iguaçu National Park, Paraná, Brazil. These records were obtained through camera trap monitoring conducted between 2018-2020 and a wildlife rescue operation outside the park. The bush do...

Habitat modification is a major threat to biodiversity, in which the savanna-like Cerrado biome has been under high disturbances for the last decades. In Brazil, São Paulo state contains few native remnants of Cerrado surrounded by anthropogenic matrix. Here we report the medium and large-sized mammal species found in a private property of a rural...

Este material foi feito para apresentar a você um pouco mais sobre os animais que vivem no Parque Nacional do Iguaçu – aqui, praticamente no seu quintal. Veja o que você vai ver nas próximas páginas! - Vamos mostrar que a nossa região – a sua, a do seu vizinho, a de todos nós – é um lugar cheio de vida. A Mata Atlântica é um dos biomas mais ricos e...

This guide is a translation and adaptation to the Brazilian fauna of the 'Guía de identificación de partes de félidos. Bolivia' published in 2020. It is a collaboration between many organizations to disseminate the diversity of cats from South American countries and train governmental agents to control the illegal trafficking of fauna and its produ...

Coexistence, as a concept and as a management goal and practice, has attracted increasing attention from researchers, managers and decision-makers dedicated to understanding and improving human-wildlife interactions. Although it still lacks a universally agreed definition, coexistence has increasingly been associated with a broad spectrum of human-...

The invasion of exotic species is considered one of the major causes of the current biodiversity crisis. Exotic ungulates are the world’s most intentionally introduced vertebrates. The axis deer is native to Asia and was successfully introduced in different regions of the world. In South America this deer was initially recorded in Argentina and Uru...

RESUMO: Os padrões de atividade podem ser um componente importante na partição de nicho entre espécies simpátricas, especialmente quando essas espécies têm hábitos semelhantes. O objetivo deste estudo foi investigar os padrões de atividade, a influência da sazonalidade na atividade e testar a partição temporal de nicho entre duas espécies simpátric...

Although known globally for its biodiversity, only around 5% of the Brazilian Pantanal is protected. The Network for Protection and Conservation of Amolar Mountain Ridge is an informal initiative that legally protects over 2000 km2 of the Pantanal biome. Several camera-trapping surveys were carried out at Amolar Mountain Ridge from August 2011 to S...

Although primarily arboreal, the capuchin monkey (Sapajus cay) descends to the ground for several reasons. We used terrestrial records obtained by camera-trapping surveys to investigate seasonality in the terrestriality of capuchin monkeys, reasons to descend to the ground, and periods of the day when terrestriality was more pronounced. We carried...

Jaguar and puma are the largest cats in the American continent. Competition between both species is expected due to similarities in diet and habitat use. The objective of this study was to test whether temporal separation exists between these two species and to analyze whether their activity patterns coincide with those of some of their potential p...

Camera trapping has been widely used to study different aspects of animal ecology, increasing scientific knowledge and helping in conservation initiatives. Recently, some studies demonstrated the use of this technique to study temporal predator-prey interactions, most of which focused on large felids. In this study, we investigate the activity patt...

Food habits of yellow armadillos have been reported to include mainly plant material and invertebrates. Although predation on medium vertebrates is unexpected, yellow armadillos present strategies to subjugate medium vertebrates. Here, we report events of predation upon domestic chickens by yellow armadillos in the Brazilian Pantanal. We installed...

Jaguars (Panthera onca) and pumas (Puma concolor) coexist throughout the Neotropics. Using camera trapping in four Brazilian biomes, we compare the daily activity patterns of the jaguar and puma, and their relationships with their main prey species. We used a kernel density method to quantify daily activity patterns and to investigate overlap betwe...