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Fil: Villada Bedoya, Sebastián. Universidad de Caldas. Grupo de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Recursos Naturales; Colombia. Fil: Cultid Medina, Carlos Andrés. Universidad de Caldas. Grupo de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Recursos Naturales; Colombia. Fil: Cultid Medina, Carlos Andrés. Universidad del Valle. Grupo de Investigación en Biología, Ecología y Manejo de Hormigas; Colombia. Fil: Cultid Medina, Carlos Andrés. Wildlife Conservation Society; Colombia. Fil: Cultid Medina, Carlos Andrés. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Fil: Escobar, Federico. Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología. Instituto de Ecología A. C.; México. Fil: Guevara, Roger. Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología. Instituto de Ecología A. C.; México. Fil: Zurita, Gustavo Andrés. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico (Nordeste). Instituto de Biología Subtropical; Argentina. Fil: Zurita, Gustavo Andrés. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico (Nordeste). Instituto de Biología Subtropical. Nodo Puerto Iguazú; Argentina. Fil: Zurita, Gustavo Andrés. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. Instituto de Biología Subtropical; Argentina. Fil: Zurita, Gustavo Andrés. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. Instituto de Biología Subtropical. Nodo Puerto Iguazú; Argentina. In landscapes dominated by agriculture, conspicuous edges often occur between landscape elements. However, there is disagreement about the existence and intensity of edge effects, and information about species‐specific responses remains scarce. Studying such edge effects can help elucidate functional landscape connectivity and contribute to agricultural management. We, therefore, assessed whether sun‐grown coffee represents a barrier to dung beetles in an Andean agricultural landscape. We also evaluated whether the response to edge effects differs among species. We found that diversity and abundance tend to decrease from forest to sun‐grown coffee and that there are sharp increases in species turnover at the forest–coffee edge. We detected several different species‐specific responses to the forest–coffee edge, suggesting differences in the mobility of the species (or spillover) and in the degree of penetration that takes place from forest patches to sun‐grown coffee plantations. This study demonstrates that the sun‐grown coffee matrix constitutes a barrier to forest species and suggests that the forest–coffee ecotone is more complex than expected. Our results support the notion that the conservation value of native forest patches in agricultural scenarios depends on the functional connectivity of forest units in the landscape to maximize the opportunities species have to disperse through the agricultural matrix.

Phylogenetic information provides insight into the ecological and evolutionary processes that organize species assemblages. We compared patterns of phylogenetic diversity among macromycete and woody plant communities along a steep elevational gradient in eastern Mexico to better understand the evolutionary processes that structure their communities. Macrofungi and trees were counted and identified in eight sites from 100 to 3500 m asl, and sequence data retrieved from GenBank for the same or closely related species were used to reconstruct their phylogenies. Patterns of species richness and phylogenetic diversity were similar for both macrofungi and trees, but macromycete richness and diversity peaked at mid-elevations, whereas woody plant richness and diversity did not show significant trends with elevation. Phylogenetic similarity among sites was low for both groups and decreased as elevational distance between sites increased. Macromycete communities displayed phylogenetic overdispersion at low elevations and phylogenetic clustering at high elevations; the latter is consistent with environmental filtering at high elevation sites. Woody plants generally exhibited phylogenetic clustering, consistent with the potential importance of environmental filtering throughout the elevational gradient.

Rodents are known to perform post-dispersal seed predation in tropical rain forest, but there is little information on the identity of these seed predators and how they select their seeds. Using cafeteria experiments, we found that seed mass, rodent body mass, and the ratio of seed/rodent mass were determinants of seed consumption.

For all its positive attributes, the recent expansion of ecotourism has resulted in greater influxes of people into natural areas, causing a range of impacts including behavioral disruptions among wildlife. How animals respond to conversation is poorly understood, but noise reduction may reduce the impact of ecotourists while simultaneously enhancing their experience with higher wildlife encounter rates. We tested the response of a rain forest bird community to noise by playing a recorded conversation while conducting point censuses in a terra firme forest in Tambopata, Peru. Fifty decibel conversation (approximately library speaking volume) caused declines of 35 percent in total detections and 33 percent in detected species richness. Birds reacted similarly to 60dB (approximately the volume of an excited child): average detections declined by 39 percent and detected species richness by 37 percent. Specifically, noise-induced detection declines were manifest both in decreased vocalizations (37% decline) and decreased physical sightings (44% decline). Lowered detection frequencies indicate behavioral shifts. As vocalization is involved in territory defense, breeding behavior, and predator detection, strong noise responsiveness indicates potential harm for birds. Insectivores were the most affected bird guild, raising conservation concerns, as insectivorous birds are sensitive to habitat modification. Birds reacted strongly to noise both near an established ecotourist lodge and in an intact reserve, indicating an absence of habituation. Thus, as a method for reducing ecotourism’s footprint on native fauna and improving tourist satisfaction with increased wildlife sightings, noise reduction seems promising, even for well-established ecotourist lodges.