Importancia del Parque Estatal Cerro de la Tortuga para la conservación de los mamíferos del estado de Morelos, México

Abstract

Importance of the Cerro de la Tortuga State Park for mammal conservation in the state of Morelos, Mexico The Cerro de la Tortuga State Park (PECT) in Mexico was declared a Protected Natural Area (ANP) in 2012. The technical report for the decree included a potential list of mammals in the area according to a bibliographic review of general distribution maps; their presence was not corroborated with field data. The aim of this study was to update the list of mammals present in the PECT with field work data so as to clarify the value of the natural resources that this ANP protects, and thus contribute to the knowledge, management and conservation of mammals in the region. Field work took place from February to October 2017. We sampled six sites over two different periods, first, during the dry season and second, during the rainy season. Direct and indirect survey methods were used to sample mammal presence. Thirty species of wild mammals were recorded within the PECT, representing 28 % of the mammal species reported for the state of Morelos. The species recorded belong to 27 genera, 16 families and six orders. Chiroptera was the richest order, with 14 species (47 %), followed by Carnivora with 7 species (23 %), Rodentia with five (17 %), Didelphimorphia with two (7 %), and Lagomorpha and Xenartra with one species (3 %) each. Among all the species detected, only Leptonycteris yerbabuenae is classified as threatened in the NOM-059-2010 and as nearly threatened in the IUCN red list. As the PECT could operate as a key landscape corridor between other ANPs in the state for several mammalian species, its conservation and optimal management is important to adequately protect the regional natural resources. Dataset published through GBIF (Doi: 10.15470/6uxnzi)