US-Guatemala Doctoral Dissertation: Local Versus Landscape Factors as Determinants of Neotropical Mammal Distributions in Heterogeneous Landscapes

University Of Florida, Gainesville FL

Investigators

Abstract

The Americas Program will support the dissertation research of Daniel Thornton, a graduate student from the University of Florida under the direction of Prof. Lyn C. Branch of the University of Florida. Mr. Thornton will conduct a ten-month study at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in Guatemala under the mentorship of Rony Garcia Anleu, Scientific Director of the Maya Biosphere Reserve Living Landscape Program in Guatamala. The proposed study will focus on the response of neotropical mammals inhabiting a fragmented tropical landscape in northern Guatemala. The identification of which landscape-scale factors are most influential for determining animal distribution remains a topic of emphasis due to its importance for conservation efforts in fragmented environments. The primary goals of the study are to: 1) test three models that explain how species respond to large-scale landscape variables relative to variables operating at smaller scales, including a model that predicts different response patterns of species according to body size, 2) examine the current paradigm that holds that habitat amount measured at the landscape-scale is more important than habitat configuration in determining species distributions, and 3) examine how body size and habitat specialization affect the relative importance of habitat amount and habitat configuration at the landscape-scale.