Mammals of a restinga forest in Mataraca, Paraíba, northeastern Brazil, and its affinities to restinga areas in Brazil

Abstract The Restinga forests are plant formations associated to the Atlantic Forest which still have not been much studied in terms of their mastofauna. The objective of the present work was to list for the first time the mammal species found in a Restinga on northeastern Brazil and show the similarities on species composition to other areas of the same environment and of Atlantic Forest. Our records were based on several complementary approaches: field survey, interviews, and museum collections. Subsequently, we performed similarity analysis between Restinga areas along Brazil and Atlantic Forest areas. We found a total of 30 species of mammals distributed in 28 genera, 16 families and 7 orders for Restinga of Mataraca. Species richness was similar to other Restinga areas and similarity analyzes pointed out that Restingas are more closely related to adjacent Atlantic Forest areas than to other Restingas in the country. This suggests that Restingas do not exhibit an autochthone fauna, but rather a faunal subsample of neighbor Atlantic Forest. Therefore, conservations policies for the Restinga habitat depends not only on actions focused on this habitat, but on initiatives that encompass nearby Atlantic Forest remnants, allowing the connectivity between these habitats.