Permeability of Neotropical agricultural lands to a key native ungulate – are well-connected forests important?

Much of what remains of the Earth’s tropical forests is embedded within agricultural landscapes, where forest is reduced and fragmented. As native forest ungulates are critical to maintaining forest function, it is imperative to understand how this functional group responds to declines in forest cover and connectivity resulting from agricultural expansion. We addressed this issue by evaluating selection of forest cover and forest connectivity by a key native ungulate of Neotropical forests, the white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari Link 1795, Tayassuidae, Cetartiodactyla), in agricultural landscapes of Brazil. We evaluated selection using compositional analysis at two hierarchical levels, landscape and home range. From 2013 to 2019, we GPS-tracked eight white-lipped peccary herds in Southwest Brazil, resulting in a total of 14,460 GPS locations. We found that herds can live in landscapes with a wide range of forest cover (35-81% of home ranges covered by native forest), with significant,...