The Baird’s tapir (Tapirella bairdii) is an endangered species throughout its distribution area, however many aspects of its biology and ecology have been poorly studied, due to its evasive behavior and low densities. The goal of this study was to evaluate the activity patterns of T. bairdii, a large ungulate species from the Neotropics, in relation to moon phases in two sites with different degree of human perturbation: the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve (CBR) and the Nuevo Becal (NB) community. We monitored twenty waterbodies in each site for 18 months using camera traps. The photographic capture rate (CR) and the corresponding moon phases for both sites were recorded. The CR of T. bairdii was 0.054 in NB and 0.029 in CBR. T. bairdii was more active at night and dawn-twilight periods. In general, T. bairdii showed major activity during the dark moon phases but the differences with the light phases were not statistically significant. However, we found a trend of tapirs to be more active in dark nights and in the darkest hours in NB than CBR. The apparent preferences for dark nights in NB could be caused by the perturbation caused by human activities at site, which may have influenced the behavior of the tapir that avoid moving out in periods of abundant light in disturbed sites. More research is needed to confirm this finding.

It is estimated that 25 % of the mammal species in the world are at risk of extinction due to habitat loss, fragmentation, farming, and overexploitation. Baird’s tapir (Tapirella bairdii), an ungulate with part of its distribution within the Maya Forest, is at risk of extinction. Waterholes, a primary source for water and an essential element for the survival of tapirs, were the target of this study design. We used a camera-trap survey to determine tapir occupancy and detection rate probability models at seven survey stations at Runaway Creek Nature Reserve which is located within the Maya Forest Corridor in central Belize. The survey was carried out from March to September 2015 and from January 2017 to October 2019 with a total sampling effort of 8,932 camera-trap nights. Our results indicated a cumulative naïve occupancy estimate of 85.7 %, a rate probability of occupancy of 0.97 +/- 0.15 (SE), and a probability of detection of 0.14 +/- 0.01 for all sites and years. The results of occupancy models with human infrastructure covariate showed that the distance to roads model had the highest influence on tapir occurrence (β = -0.95 +/- 0.87), followed by the village covariate model (β = 0.77 +/- 0.99). The topographic covariate of river model (β = 0.47 +/- 0.85) had minimal support. This study highlights the critical importance of waterholes for survival of tapirs, and the influence of roads on tapir occurrence at Runaway Creek Nature Reserve.

Although many large mammals currently face significant threats that could lead to their extinction, resources for conservation are often scarce, resulting in the need to develop efficient plans to prioritize conservation actions. We combined several methods in spatial ecology to identify the distribution of the endangered Baird's tapir across its range from southern Mexico to northern Colombia. Twenty-eight habitat patches covering 23% of the study area were identified, harboring potentially 62% or more of the total population for this flagship species. Roughly half of the total area is under some form of protection, while most of the remaining habitat (~70%) occurs in indigenous/local communities. The network with maximum connectivity created from these patches contains at least one complete break (in Mexico between Selva El Ocote and Selva Lacandona) even when considering the most generous dispersal scenario. The connectivity analysis also highlighted a probable break at the Panama Canal and high habitat fragmentation in Honduras. In light of these findings, we recommend the following actions to facilitate the conservation of Baird's tapir: 1) protect existing habitat by strengthening enforcement in areas already under protection, 2) work with indigenous territories to preserve and enforce their land rights, and help local communities maintain traditional practices; 3) re-establish connections between habitat patches that will allow for connectivity across the species' distribution; 4) conduct additional noninvasive surveys in patches with little or no species data; and 5) collect more telemetry and genetic data on the species to estimate home range size, dispersal capabilities, and meta-population structure.

Species distribution models (SDMs) are statistical tools used to develop continuous predictions of species occurrence. ‘Integrated SDMs’ (ISDMs) are an elaboration of this approach with potential advantages that allow for the dual use of opportunistically collected presence-only data and site-occupancy data from planned surveys. These models also account for survey bias and imperfect detection through the use of a hierarchical modelling framework that separately estimates the species–environment response and detection process. This is particularly helpful for conservation applications and predictions for rare species, where data are often limited and prediction errors may have significant management consequences. Despite this potential importance, ISDMs remain largely untested under a variety of scenarios. We performed an exploration of key modelling decisions and assumptions on an ISDM using the endangered Baird’s tapir (Tapirus bairdii) as a test species. We found that site area had the strongest effect on the magnitude of population estimates and underlying intensity surface and was driven by estimates of model intercepts. Selecting a site area that accounted for the individual movements of the species within an average home range led to population estimates that coincided with expert estimates. ISDMs that do not account for the individual movements of species will likely lead to less accurate estimates of species intensity (number of individuals per unit area) and thus overall population estimates.

This bias could be severe and highly detrimental to conservation actions if uninformed ISDMs are used to estimate global populations of threatened and data-deficient species, particularly those that lack natural history and movement information. However, the ISDM was consistently the most accurate model compared to other approaches, which demonstrates the importance of this new modelling framework and the ability to combine opportunistic data with systematic survey data. Thus, we recommend researchers use ISDMs with conservative movement information when estimating population sizes of rare and data-deficient species. ISDMs could be improved by using a similar parameterization to spatial capture–recapture models that explicitly incorporate animal movement as a model parameter, which would further remove the need for spatial subsampling prior to implementation.

The genus Linguatula (Pentastomida) is cosmopolitan and includes 6 species that have a higher prevalence in subtropical, tropical, and temperate regions. Larvae (nymphs) of Linguatula spp. require an intermediate host (herbivorous), while the adult worms inhabit the respiratory tract of wild and domestic carnivores. During an ongoing project on conservation biology of Baird’s tapir (Tapirus bairdii), 3 pentastome nymphs were found parasitizing the liver, mesentery, and small intestine of an adult male from the region of Calakmul, Campeche, Mexico. Based on morphological and molecular data, these specimens correspond to Linguatula recurvata. Here, we present the first record of a linguatulid parasitizing a Tapirus sp., and only the second of a pentastomid in tapirs. In addition, this work includes for the first time sequences of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I of L. recurvata.

Extensive, unprotected tracts of tropical forests remain in community territories of the Calakmul region, in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. These forest tracts face deforestation mainly due to agricultural development. Based on the graphic theory and using the CONEFOR SENSINODE 2.2 program, we analyzed the landscape connectivity between the forests of two communities and Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. Derived from vegetation cover and land use classification, the landscape was characterized considering Baird’s tapir habitat preferences. The indices used showed a loss of connectivity between community territories and Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, making it difficult for tapirs to move outside the continuous forests. We detected a few important nodes for landscape connectivity and a reduced number of connections allowing potential tapir dispersal in each study site. Despite the evident trends of forest fragmentation across the Calakmul region, our results suggest that the landscapes of our study sites are not optimal, but still usable for tapirs, which are able to move throughout habitat mosaics of forests and agricultural areas. We recommend that farming practices should be encouraged over mechanized agriculture to mitigate deforestation and tapir habitat loss in the study area.

Notwithstanding their specialized herbivorous diet, leaf-cutting ants opportunistically exploit temporary resources such as insect or vertebrate carcasses. We report on the first case of attine workers, Atta cephalotes (L.) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), foraging on the scar tissues of a living vertebrate, a wounded female Baird’s tapir, Tapirus bairdii (Gill) (Mammalia: Perissodactyla: Tapiridae). We put forward 2, not mutually exclusive, hypotheses to explain such behavior: (1) utilization by the leaf-cutting ants of these tissues as a resource that provides rare essential nutrients, and (2) opportunistic sampling of polymicrobial communities associated with the skin of the wounded animal in search of new strains of their associated actinobacteria.

Baird’s tapir is the largest Neotropical tapir species, and it is considered Endangered by the IUCN. The Calakmul Biosphere Reserve (CBR) is the largest protected tropical forest in Mexico. The CBR is at the heart of the Maya Forest, a tri-national forest located in Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize that is the largest tropical forest outside the Amazon River basin. Free-standing water in the CBR occurs in only a few ephemeral ponds. These ponds are rare in the landscape, with a mean density of one pond in every 10 km2, and with an average distance among ponds of 3 km. Only some of these ponds have free-standing water in every year. A decreasing trend in water availability from these ponds was detected from 2008 to 2018. Our present objective was to document population of the tapirs during these 11 years, and reveal any relationship to the pattern of water availability. Using the technique of photo-trapping, we monitored from 9 to 15 ponds over a period of 8 years (a total of more than 18,000 camera-days) during the 11-year period. Results showed that although the population remained relatively stable, the index of relative abundance indicated a slight decrease in population abundance and in some sites seemed at least superficially associated with decreasing water availability. Such long-term population studies are becoming more important for estimating the impacts of possible changes and for predicting the future of populations. In turn, they assist the conservation of endangered and sensitive species such as Baird’s tapir.