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Mammals are key components of biodiversity mediating ecosystem functions, mainly because of the diversity of forms and functions of this group. Understanding and making explicit the role of mammals underpinning Nature's Contributions to People (NCP) or directly contributing to human well-being would help to influence policy formulation towards sustainable development and nature conservation. Through a workshop held at the XXXII Jornadas Argentinas de Mastozoología and subsequent collaborative work, we compiled information related to Mammal's Contributions to People in Argentina (MCP-Arg) based on participants' interpretation of the available literature and their field experience. Argentinian mammals contribute to 12 of the 18 defined NCPs. We derived numerous MCP-Arg from studies that focused mainly on ecological processes and conservation, revealing an information gap in MCP-Arg description, quantification, and mapping. All taxa contribute similarly to the overall contributions, highlighting the importance of preserving mammal diversity. Conservation should also be framed at the local community rather than regional scales, aiming to preserve ecological functioning and contributions to human well-being, especially within regulation contributions. Our results show destructive feedback between threats and habitat-related contributions, with habitat degradation being the greatest threat to mammalian contributions and habitat maintenance the most threatened one. Our research indicates that a substantial amount of knowledge about MCP-Arg is available through narratives and interpretations. Considering the NCP approach to mammalian research, we can make significant contributions to both mammal conservation and human well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is noteworthy that community-led biodiversity conservation programmes can address 10-13 of the 17 sustainable development goals set by the United Nations. The Partners Conservation Alliance is determined to help strengthen conservation efforts worldwide by empowering local and Indigenous communities and ensuring their voices are heard in the global conversation about biodiversity conservation. [Extracted from the article]

Indigenous Wichís and mestizos Criollos inhabit a rural, biodiversity rich, area of the Argentinean Dry Chaco. Traditionally, Wichís were nomads and their relations with wildlife were shaped by animistic and shamanic beliefs. Today, Wichís live in stable communities and practice subsistence hunting, gathering and in some cases, fishing. Criollos are mestizos, i.e. a mixture of the first Spanish settlers and different indigenous groups. They arrived during the 20th century from neighbouring Provinces. They practice extensive ranching, hunting and gathering. Our aim was to help develop effective and legitimate actions to conserve wildlife species in this region, focused on Wichís' and Criollos' perceptions of and relations with wildlife. We conducted semistructured interviews (N=105) in rural settlements. We found differences in both groups' hunting techniques, drivers and perceptions on the importance of wild meat for nutrition. However, both groups have a close relation with wildlife, they use wild animals in a variety of ways, including as food resource, medicine and predictors of future events. Wichís and Criollos also relate with wildlife in a spiritual dimension, have animistic and shamanic beliefs and have unique traditional ecological knowledge. Hunters in both communities are breaking traditional hunting norms but conservation measures grounded on these norms have a higher probability of success. Management recommendations include developing programmes focused on (i) conserving thin armadillos; (ii) conserving pregnant and breeding females of all species; (iii) managing dogs to avoid unnecessary killings and on (iv) improving local livelihoods. We also provide recommendations that are specific for each group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conservation measures are more likely to succeed when they take into account the perceptions and opinions of the local people who are in contact with the intended targets of protection. One way to account for local perceptions is to include local people in research and monitoring. We worked in a portion of the Dry Chaco that is rich in biodiversity, yet poor in urgently-needed information on medium and large vertebrates. We applied participatory monitoring together with small-scale ranchers, criollos, and indigenous Wichi residents. In this article we analyze the effectiveness of this method in incorporating local people in research activities. We explain the development of the methodology and its components, how we worked with local people and how we collected the data. Participatory monitoring comprised several different activities: meetings, training, practice and data collection. Local settlers added goals to those initially proposed, participated in activities, decided on methods of data collection and solved problems. Finally, we analyzed whether the method allowed us to meet the scientific objectives of our research: (i) to determine the species of medium and large vertebrates (> 0.5 kg) that are present in the area; (ii) to monitor their presence; and (iii) to describe the natural environments where animals were detected. With participatory monitoring we did meet our three scientific objectives. Yet participatory monitoring was not only a tool for collecting data, but also a tool for social integration. The method allowed the participation of people normally excluded from the system, to take into account their perceptions and to strengthen their capacities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Field information is essential for developing conservation actions, but standard methods for surveying wildlife are often inefficient in large, remote areas. Without efficient methods, surveying is difficult or even impossible. Consequently, some of the most threatened species and regions remain un- or under-surveyed, e.g. South American Chaco. Survey methods based on local ecological knowledge (LEK-methods) could be useful for surveying these areas and species. However, LEK-methods may be inaccurate and are rarely evaluated or compared to standard-methods. This is the first large-scale study evaluating the performance of two LEK-methods, and comparing it with the performance of standard-methods, for detecting three species of large terrestrial mammals. We used a locally-based survey (LBS) and interviews as LEK-methods, and transect and camera trapping as standard survey methods. We estimated the probability of detecting each species with each method, of having false-presences and their cost. We also quantitatively analysed the ability of LBS to build local capacity, focusing on conservation, research and working skills. We found that compared to standard-methods, LEK-methods increase detection probabilities of three species while providing accurate information. LBSs are more expensive than interviews but improve local capacities, raising the chances of successful implementation of community-based conservation programmes. Interviews are optimal for rapid assessments and can be useful for wildlife monitoring. Before using LEK-methods, we recommend pilot studies to determine estimators´ variability. Overall, this study shows that LEK-based methods can be efficient and accurate for detecting large mammals in remote areas. Furthermore, LEK-methods can help develop legitimate conservation initiatives. The probability of detecting a species depends on the species characteristics and on the methods used in the survey. For three species with different biological and ecological characteristics -white-lipped, collared or chacoan peccaries (Tayassu pecari, Pecari tajacu and Parachoerus wagneri)-, locally-based surveys provided the highest detection probabilities. The probability of detecting these species with the locally-based survey and interviews to hunters are higher than with standard-methods. The season (rainy/dry) was differentiated when estimating white-lipped peccary's detection probabilities because this factor had a significant effect on estimations. Unlabelled Image • LEK increases efficiency and accuracy of large terrestrial mammal surveys. • Locally-based surveys contribute to build local capacity. • LEK-methods help develop legitimate, successful conservation actions. • Locally-based surveys are better for wildlife monitoring than for rapid assessments. • Interviews are optimal for rapid assessments but respondents must be qualified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim Location Methods Results Main Conclusions Land‐use change and overexploitation are major threats to biodiversity, and climate change will exert additional pressure in the 21st century. Although there are strong interactions between these threats, our understanding of the synergistic and compensatory effects on threatened species' range geography remains limited. Our aim was to disentangle the impact of habitat loss, hunting and climate change on species, using the example of the endangered Chacoan peccary (Catagonus wagneri).Gran Chaco ecoregion in South America.Using a large occurrence database, we integrated a time‐calibrated species distribution model with a hunting pressure model to reconstruct changes in the distribution of suitable peccary habitat between 1985 and 2015. We then used partitioning analysis to attribute the relative contribution of habitat change to land‐use conversion, climate change and varying hunting pressure.Our results reveal widespread habitat deterioration, with only 11% of the habitat found in 2015 considered suitable and safe. Hunting pressure was the strongest single threat, yet most habitat deterioration (58%) was due to the combined, rather than individual, effects of the three drivers we assessed. Climate change would have led to a compensatory effect, increasing suitable habitat area, yet this effect was negated by the strongly negative and interacting threats of land‐use change and hunting.Our study reveals the central role of overexploitation, which is often neglected in biogeographic assessments, and suggests that addressing overexploitation has huge potential for increasing species' adaptive capacity in the face of climate and land‐use change. More generally, we highlight the importance of jointly assessing extinction drivers to understand how species might fare in the 21st century. Here, we provide a simple and transferable framework to determine the separate and joint effects of three main drivers of biodiversity loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many vertebrate species undergo population fluctuations that may be random or regularly cyclic in nature. Vertebrate population cycles in northern latitudes are driven by both endogenous and exogenous factors. Suggested causes of mysterious disappearances documented for populations of the Neotropical, herd-forming, white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari, henceforth "WLP") include large-scale movements, overhunting, extreme floods, or disease outbreaks. By analyzing 43 disappearance events across the Neotropics and 88 years of commercial and subsistence harvest data for the Amazon, we show that WLP disappearances are widespread and occur regularly and at large spatiotemporal scales throughout the species' range. We present evidence that the disappearances represent 7–12-year troughs in 20–30-year WLP population cycles occurring synchronously at regional and perhaps continent-wide spatial scales as large as 10,000–5 million km2. This may represent the first documented case of natural population cyclicity in a Neotropical mammal. Because WLP populations often increase dramatically prior to a disappearance, we posit that their population cycles result from over-compensatory, density-dependent mortality. Our data also suggest that the increase phase of a WLP cycle is partly dependent on recolonization from proximal, unfragmented and undisturbed forests. This highlights the importance of very large, continuous natural areas that enable source-sink population dynamics and ensure re-colonization and local population persistence in time and space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Habitat destruction and overexploitation are the main threats to biodiversity and where they co‐occur, their combined impact is often larger than their individual one. Yet, detailed knowledge of the spatial footprints of these threats is lacking, including where they overlap and how they change over time. These knowledge gaps are real barriers for effective conservation planning. Here, we develop a novel approach to reconstruct the individual and combined footprints of both threats over time. We combine satellite‐based land‐cover change maps, habitat suitability models and hunting pressure models to demonstrate our approach for the community of larger mammals (48 species > 1 kg) across the 1.1 million km2 Gran Chaco region, a global deforestation hotspot covering parts of Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay. This provides three key insights. First, we find that the footprints of habitat destruction and hunting pressure expanded considerably between 1985 and 2015, across ~40% of the entire Chaco – twice the area affected by deforestation. Second, both threats increasingly acted together within the ranges of larger mammals in the Chaco (17% increase on average, ± 20% SD, cumulative increase of co‐occurring threats across 465 000 km2), suggesting large synergistic effects. Conversely, core areas of high‐quality habitats declined on average by 38%. Third, we identified remaining priority areas for conservation in the northern and central Chaco, many of which are outside the protected area network. We also identify hotspots of high threat impacts in central Paraguay and northern Argentina, providing a spatial template for threat‐specific conservation action. Overall, our findings suggest increasing synergistic effects between habitat destruction and hunting pressure in the Chaco, a situation likely common in many tropical deforestation frontiers. Our work highlights how threats can be traced in space and time to understand their individual and combined impact, even in situations where data are sparse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Humans, elephants, chimpanzees, and cetaceans show concern with the death of other members of their species and respond to death in particular ways. Science considers that these species are exceptions and that other mammal species show little or no reaction to the dead bodies of individuals of their species. Collared peccaries (Pecari tajacu; Tayassuidae) are social animals that live in groups of 5–50 individuals maintaining close and complex social relationships. The collared peccary occupies many different environments and it is widely distributed from the south of North America to the north of Argentina. Their behavior is well studied, but we know little about their behavior toward the dead. We directly observed and filmed with a camera trap the reactions of a five‐member herd of collared peccaries to the death of a herd member. We worked on a suburban forested area in the mountains of central Arizona. We found that the herd visited and spent time with the dead body for 10 days after the peccary died. The frequency of the visits declined until the cadaver was consumed by coyotes. Most of the videos showed two individuals visited the dead animal (44%), solitary records were also frequent (39%) and only 4% of the videos recorded three peccaries. Visits were more frequent during the night (64%). Peccaries do react to the death of a herd member by behaving in particular ways. Reactions include pushing at the dead individual, staring at it, biting it, and trying to pick it up by putting their snout under the corpse and pushing it up, and defending it from coyotes, among others. These levels of behavioral complexity for peccaries are beyond those known so far. The behaviors of this herd of peccaries resemble those of humans, cetaceans, chimpanzees, and elephants and show that these groups are not the only ones that react to death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]