Adrián Monjeau

Range Management Affects Native Ungulate Populations in Península Valdés, a World Natural Heritage

Sheep rearing is the main productive activity in Patagonian rangelands, where guanacos are the only native ungulate. Ranchers perceive a decrease in range carrying capacity as guanaco numbers increase, therefore guanaco conservation within private lands becomes a considerable challenge. This issue is particularly evident in the World Natural Heritage Península Valdés (PV), where there is a need to harmonize livestock production and biodiversity conservation. While sheep rearing prevails as the primary land use in the area, some ecotourism initiatives have been implemented to complement livestock production. In order to study how land use affected guanaco distribution, we characterized PVs ranches in terms of land subdivision, primary productivity, stocking-rate and management type, and assess how these variables affected guanaco encounter rates. Smaller ranches were composed of smaller paddocks (mean size 4.8 km2), which showed higher values of the remote-sensing derived Enhance Vegetation Index (EVI) (mean 0.14) and held higher sheep densities (mean 108.0 sheep/km2), while larger management units (mean size 23.8 km2), showed lower EVI values (mean 0.12) and lower stocking-rates (mean 36.7 sheep/km2). This pattern suggests that primary productivity has been a decisive factor to determine the minimal paddock size set by ranchers in PV, apparently precluding excessive land-subdivision in less productive areas. Guanaco encounter rate, expressed as number of guanacos per travelled kilometre, was inversely related to EVI and stocking-rate. However, land subdivision was the better predictor of guanaco encounter-rate within only sheep ranches, finding more guanacos per kilometre as paddock size increased. In contrast, in ranches where ecotourism was implemented as a complementary activity, guanaco encounter-rates were greater, regardless of paddock size. Our results suggest that the implementation of an additional activity by which landowners derive benefits from wildlife has prompted a beneficial outcome for guanacos, presumably through a decrease in harassment intensity. Finally, we propose possible mechanisms by which land subdivision may affect guanaco distribution and potential alternatives for the inclusion of wildlife conservation in a context of extensive livestock production.

Mammalia, Chiroptera, Molossidae, Tadarida brasiliensis I. Geoffroy, 1824: distribution extension

Tadarida brasiliensis is one of the most widely distributed mammalian species in America. We report the southernmost continental record for this species in Rada Tilly, province of Chubut, Argentina, extending its range ca. 390 km to the south.

Mammalia, Rodentia, Sigmodontinae, Akodon molinae Contreras, 1968: new locality records and filling gaps

Akodon molinae Contreras, 1968 is a large (holotype: 42.5 g), diurnal species with long and hispid fur, the dorsum is dark grey and the belly is whitish. The tail is shorter (holotype: 78 mm) than head and body (holotype: 108 mm), black dorsally and white in its centrally proximal third. The skull is large and strong, the zygomatic plate is wide and its edge is slightly convex and directed obliquely backwards and down (type description, Contreras 1968). The mandible has a short and robust coronoid process and an anteromedian flexus/flexid on the first upper and lower molars respectively, like other species in the genus Akodon. Cranial and dental remains of A. molinae are shown in Figure 1. The holotype was collected in vivero del Ministerio de Asuntos Agrarios, Laguna Chasicó, Buenos Aires province, Argentina, in grasslands near water bodies (Contreras 1968). Near the Atlantic coast, it lives in shrub steppes and halophilic plant communities (Daciuk 1974). Its distribution in northern Patagonia was associated with the Monte Phytogeographical Province (Pardiñas et al. 2003).

Fuzzy Tree Studio: A Tool for the Design of the Scorecard for the Management of Protected Areas

This paper presents a Scorecard, which associated with a geographic information system (GIS), will provide a management tool to assess vulnerability within a protected area. To accomplish this task a novel framework is presented, which enables the design of logical predicates evaluated with fuzzy logic. This tool may guide decisions and investment priorities in protected areas. We have taken the Valdes Peninsula Protected Natural Area as a case study, which has been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. In this area we have released an intense amount of variables related to natural resources, as well as human uses of land and territory and the effectiveness of the management plan and management area. To evaluate the vulnerability values of different parcels, according to a set of field collected variables is proposed a framework that manages logic predicates using fuzzy logic. Several ecologists evaluated this framework satisfactorily due to the easy-to-use interface and that the shown results are highly understandable for those who need to make decisions on environmental care.

Cuanto más publicamos, menos nos citan

Existe una preocupacion acerca de que la presion que ejercen las instituciones academicas por aumentar el numero de publicaciones en revistas de factor de impacto elevado podria ir en desmedro de la calidad y, en consecuencia, de la incidencia que los trabajos puedan tener en la comunidad cientifica internacional. Para poner a prueba esta hipotesis, en este trabajo realizamos un analisis epistemometrico y estadistico de los trabajos publicados entre 1975 y 2015 por ecologos que trabajan en instituciones argentinas, brasileras, chilenas y mexicanas. Se registraron los valores para el indice-h (que mide la cantidad de articulos publicados y sus citas) como indicador de calidad cientifica, y el total de items publicados en las revistas que ocuparon los 10 primeros lugares de cada pais como indicador de productividad cientifica. Si bien el numero de publicaciones crecio de forma exponencial en estos cuatro paises, desde el 2000 se observa que el numero de citaciones por articulo disminuyo marcadamente. Es decir, fomentar la productividad cientifica mediante el incentivo de aumentar el numero de publicaciones en revistas de alto factor de impacto, la politica cientifica reinante en los paises latinoamericanos, no refleja necesariamente una mayor insercion de la ecologia latinoamericana en la comunidad cientifica internacional, sino mas bien que las actuales politicas cientificas de estos paises produjeron lo contrario. Publicar menos trabajos, pero de mayor calidad y profundidad, o bien dedicarnos a fortalecer un sistema cientifico y tecnologico que se vincule a las demandas locales y regionales (y evaluar los productos acorde a esta meta) parecen ser caminos alternativos, pero mas sabios, para construir una ecologia regional con mas impacto, relevancia, pertenencia y visibilidad globales. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25260/EA.17.27.3.0.453