Dear MARMAM Community, We are pleased to share our latest open-access publication in Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems:
From Natural to Human-Dominated Seascapes: Habitat Loss for Guiana Dolphins Over Two Decades Mariana Leêne Santana Barros de Leal, Tomaz Cezimbra, Guilherme Maricato, Israel S. Maciel, and Rodrigo H. Tardin.
Abstract: Changes in natural environments, such as coastal and marine zones, caused by human activities impact the quality of habitats and their inhabitants, ultimately jeopardizing species conservation. As human activity is ever-increasing, it is imperative to understand how multiple stressors, such as shipping, fisheries, and pollution, affect marine animals. The Guiana dolphin is a cetacean susceptible to many anthropogenic stressors due to its coastal preference. As such, we assessed the consequences of human stressors for this species by comparing the probability of occurrence of a population in two time series: past (1998–2007) and current (2017–2024). We modeled the probability of occurrence using environmental and anthropogenic data from both time series, comparing the response curves and importance of variables. We observed a change in the importance of variables; in the past, chlorophyll concentration was more important to predict dolphins' habitat use, while in the current time series, distance to multiple anthropogenic stressors was more significant. The models predicted a 6.84% increase in the number of pixels of occurrence over the years. However, 44.83% of these areas were predicted to have the lowest and low probabilities. Meanwhile, 49.61% of pixels decreased to a lower probability category, including the areas with the highest probabilities of occurrence (24.7% of pixels) that were now predicted as absences. We concluded that anthropogenic changes are affecting the habitats and distribution of the Guiana dolphin, highlighting the need for further evaluations of how human activities influence the conservation of biodiversity. The full paper is available via open access here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/aqc.70386 Thank you, Rodrigo Professor Adjunto Departamento de Ecologia, Instituto de Biologia Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, RJ. Brasil Editor associado - Ecology and Evolution <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/20457758> ----- Professor Department of Ecology, Biology Institute Federal University of Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil Associate editor - Ecology and Evolution <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/20457758> Lattes <http://lattes.cnpq.br/3231576901208672> ORCID <http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0807-6937> Research Gate ID <http://www.researcherid.com/rid/J-6566-2013> ECoMAR-UFRJ <https://ecomarufrj.com.br/>