Landscape-level human disturbance results in loss and contraction of mammalian populations in tropical forests
Tropical forests hold exceptional biodiversity, yet mammal communities face mounting pressure from human‑driven landscape change. Using a standardized dataset of 239 species across 37 forests on three continents, this study jointly modeled species richness and occupancy to assess how communities respond to landscape‑scale anthropogenic threats. Forest loss and fragmentation within 50 km reduced occupancy, while human population density reduced species richness—evidence of extinction filtering, where sensitive species disappear while remaining taxa persist. These results show that protected areas alone cannot secure tropical mammal diversity without concurrent efforts to address broader landscape pressures, informing global conservation planning as protected‑area expansion accelerates.
Subject Tags
- Forest
- Biodiversity
- Wildlife
Abstract
Tropical forests hold most of Earth’s biodiversity and a higher concentration of threatened mammals than other biomes. As a result, some mammal species persist almost exclusively in protected areas, often within extensively transformed and heavily populated landscapes. Other species depend on remaining remote forested areas with sparse human populations. However, it remains unclear how mammalian communities in tropical forests respond to anthropogenic pressures in the broader landscape in which they are embedded. As governments commit to increasing the extent of global protected areas to prevent further biodiversity loss, identifying the landscape-level conditions supporting wildlife has become essential. Here, we assessed the relationship between mammal communities and anthropogenic threats in the broader landscape. We simultaneously modeled species richness and community occupancy as complementary metrics of community structure, using a state-of-the-art community model parameterized with a standardized pan-tropical data set of 239 mammal species from 37 forests across three continents. Forest loss and fragmentation within a 50-km buffer were associated with reduced occupancy in monitored communities, while species richness was unaffected by them. In contrast, landscape-scale human density was associated with reduced mammal richness but not occupancy, suggesting that sensitive species have been extirpated, while remaining taxa are relatively unaffected. Taken together, these results provide evidence of extinction filtering within tropical forests triggered by anthropogenic pressure occurring in the broader landscape. Therefore, existing and new reserves may not achieve the desired biodiversity outcomes without concurrent investment in addressing landscape-scale threats.
Citation
Greco, I., Beaudrot, L., Sutherland, C., Tenan, S., Hsieh, C., Gorczynski, D., ... & Rovero, F. (2025). Landscape-level human disturbance results in loss and contraction of mammalian populations in tropical forests. PLoS Biology, 23(2), e3002976. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002976
TNC Authors
-
Megan Baker-Watton
The Nature Conservancy