HABITAT USE BY WILD MANED WOLVES (CHRYSOCYON BRACHYURUS) IN A TRANSITION ZONE ENVIRONMENT

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1 Journal of Mammalogy, 89(1):97 104, 2008 HABITAT USE BY WILD MANED WOLVES (CHRYSOCYON BRACHYURUS) IN A TRANSITION ZONE ENVIRONMENT CARLYLE MENDES COELHO, LUIZ FERNANDO BANDEIRA DE MELO, MARCO AURÉLIO LIMA SÁBATO, ELISA M. VAZ MAGNI, ANDRÉ HIRSCH, AND ROBERT JOHN YOUNG* Fundação Zoo-Botânica, Avenida Otacílio Negrão de Lima, 8000 Pampulha Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brasil (CMC, LFBM, MALS, EMVM) Conservation, Ecology and Animal Behaviour Group, Prédio 41, Mestrado em Zoologia, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais, Avenida Dom José Gaspar, 500 Coração Eucarístico, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brasil (AH, RJY) Animals should use habitats that increase their chances of survival and reproductive output; thus, information on habitat use can be useful both from an ecological and a conservation perspective. Using global positioning system tracking collars, we studied habitat use by a pair of Chrysocyon brachyurus (maned wolves) living in a cerrado Atlantic forest transition zone in Brazil. During our study, the female had a litter of pups, and we were able to evaluate how reproduction affected habitat use. To investigate habitat use, we mapped our telemetry fixes onto vegetational and geographical data obtained from satellite images of our study site. We investigated habitat use by maned wolves in relation to vegetation and land cover, proximity to buildings, proximity to roads, elevation, and distance to water sources. Maned wolves showed a strong preference for rocky fields, which are a subhabitat of cerrado, and a strong avoidance of Atlantic rain forest. Maned wolves also were associated significantly and positively with buildings and roads at night, likely because of supplemental feeding and ease of locomotion. Elevation was confounded with habitat type and the location of supplemental feeding; therefore, no firm conclusions could be drawn about this factor. The female remained 250 m from water when she was lactating. Although maned wolves can be behaviorally flexible in terms of habitat use, they show a strong preference for open habitats such as cerrado that is especially pronounced during a reproductive phase. Key words: Atlantic forest, Brazil, cerrado, Chrysocyon brachyurus, habitat use, maned wolf The maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus) is considered to be a species typical of savanna-type habitats, such as the Brazilian cerrado, and is considered to be a flagship species for this biome. This species displays many anatomical adaptations for survival in this type of habitat. The maned wolf has long legs relative to its body length, permitting it not only to travel quickly but also giving it a high vantage point from which to hunt rodents and ground-dwelling birds (Dietz 1984, 1985). However, the species appears to be able to acclimate to a variety of habitat types. For example, individuals have been observed in the Atlantic rain-forest zone in Brazil, where they are probably taking advantage of cattle pastures created by deforestation (Santos et al. 2003). The Atlantic forest currently * Correspondent: robyoung@pucminas.br Ó 2008 American Society of Mammalogists is composed of a mosaic of small forest fragments distributed in agricultural land (Tabarelli et al. 2005), with only 7% of its original distribution remaining. At present, there have been no studies of habitat use by maned wolves. This lack of data probably reflects the difficulty in observing the species in the wild, and that the majority of study sites, both historical and actual, are located in cerrado habitat. Studies conducted at sites dominated by a single type of habitat, such as the classic study of the ecology of maned wolves by Dietz (1984) in Serra da Canastra National Park, Brazil, do not allow true assessment of habitat use because comparisons showing avoidance or selection of a variety of habitat types are not possible. Broomhall et al. (2003), studying another open-habitat species, the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus), stressed the importance of studying such species in a variety of habitat types to determine a habitat preference. Studies of alien invader species have shown that where we encounter a species is not necessarily where it would thrive in terms of reproduction and survival (Hulme 2006). 97

2 98 JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY Vol. 89, No. 1 Conservation biologists are increasingly turning to analysis and interpretation of satellite imagery to help them in their studies to conserve animal species. The interpretation and analysis of satellite images allows researchers to identify and classify vegetation cover and land use without needing to visit a particular location, thereby greatly speeding up environmental research. In one recent study, Teixeira et al. (2006) were able to identify 21 types of vegetation cover and land use in a wide variety of widely distributed Brazilian environments from satellite images. This use of satellite images can become particularly powerful when it is combined with studies of animals that are fitted with global positioning system (GPS) tracking collars to monitor habitat use because GPS collars provide data on animal locations with a relatively high precision (4 15 m depending on habitat density Coelho et al. 2007; Wing et al. 2005). Radiotelemetry studies using traditional radiocollars and triangulation can be relatively inaccurate for species that travel large distances each day, such as maned wolves (de Melo et al. 2007). For example, a radiotelemetry study on European wolves (Canis lupus) reported an average error of.200 m on each location determined by telemetry (Theuerkauf and Jedrzejewski 2002); such an error would result in highly inaccurate estimates of habitat use (Garshelis 2000). To preserve a species, it is necessary to understand how it interacts with its environment, and which habitats within its environment are important to its survival (Garshelis 2000). Increasingly, animals are living in environments that have been modified by humans, with urban wildlife being an extreme example of this (Williams et al. 2006). However, even in nature reserves animals are frequently subjected to a modified environment where roads and trails provide access to ecotourists (Trombulak and Frissell 2000). Frequently, nature reserves house facilities such as hotels and other infrastructure to support ecotourism, and may deliberately attract wildlife for tourists to observe by supplemental feeding (Silva and Talamoni 2004). At our study site, this type of supplemental feeding occurred on a daily basis for wild maned wolves (Silva and Talamoni 2004). A study on the effects of supplemental feeding on white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) showed that it did not affect home-range size but did reduce size of core areas by 50% (Cooper et al. 2006). In this study, we used GPS tracking collars to examine habitat use by wild maned wolves both during and outside a reproductive event. We chose a study site that was in a transition zone between cerrado (considered typical habitat for maned wolves) and Atlantic rain forest. The use of habitat in this type of environment will allow evaluation of the importance of these different types of habitat to maned wolves. MATERIALS AND METHODS All procedures reported in this paper are in compliance with all relevant and applicable state and federal laws in Brazil. The subject of our study was a pair of wild maned wolves. During the middle of this study the female gave birth to 1 pup (in the middle of June 2001 in the dry season), and made her den inside a hollowed-out termite mound. This study was conducted in the Reserva Particular do Patrimônio Natural Santuário da Serra do Caraça (Private Natural Heritage Reserve [208059S, W]), located in Minas Gerais State, southeastern Brazil, in the southern portion of the Espinhaço Mountain range. The area of the reserve was 10,188 ha, with elevations ranging from 850 to 2,072 m above sea level. The Espinhaço Mountain range is a mountainous complex that delimitates a zone of contact between the cerrado and the Atlantic forest in its southern portion, and transition zones of cerrado, Atlantic forest, and caatinga (tropical deciduous forest) in its central and northern edges (Giulietti and Pirani 1988; Giulietti et al. 1997). In the center of the reserve is a hotel where supplemental feeding (approximately 2 kg of meat per day, which is approximately 30% of the daily intake of food of an adult maned wolf) of the maned wolves occurred on a nightly basis between 1900 and 2200 h. The reserve and the supplemental feeding have been described in detail by Silva and Talamoni (2004). Our study was conducted from August 2000 to February The male maned wolf was captured on 19 July 2000 and the female was captured on 7 August 2000 in a standard wooden trap designed for the species (see Dietz 1984). After capture, maned wolves were anesthetized and fitted with GPS tracking collars (model Simplex; Televilt, Lindesburg, Sweden) under the supervision of a qualified veterinary surgeon. The animals were released after the veterinary surgeon considered that they had fully recovered from the anesthesia. The fitted collars provided the identity of the wearer, its location, its elevation, and measurements related to the accuracy of the collar (e.g., degree of precision see Coelho et al. 2007). Field tests of these collars have shown them to be much more accurate in the field than conventional very-high-frequency radiotracking collars (Coelho et al. 2007). We programmed these collars to record the aforementioned data on a weekly basis: Tuesdays at 0100, 0700, 1300, and 1900 h; Thursdays at 0300, 0900, 1500, and 2100 h; and Saturdays at 0500, 1100, 1700, and 2300 h. The collars were programmed to spend up to 240 s procuring satellites; if they did not manage to procure a sufficient number of satellites (minimum of 3) in this time period, no data were recorded. Data with large error values (.15 m) were eliminated from the data set. Because of a problem with the collar on the male, he was recaptured in December 2000 and a new collar was fitted; however, soon after this recapture the new collar developed the same problem, and consequently this limited our data collection on the male. In January 2001, the collar on the female also had a problem and so she was recaptured and a new collar fitted, which subsequently worked perfectly until the end of the study. Thus, we experienced a 50% failure rate in our GPS collars. Geographic information system analyses. The area of the reserve was converted into a rectangle measuring km, centered on the geographic mean of all data points (fixes from the GPS collars), and satellite images of this area were acquired for analysis and interpretation. We decided to use an area larger than the home ranges for 2 reasons. First, our sampling frequency meant that the maned wolves could be using areas not recorded by the GPS collars; and 2nd, we needed to measure

3 February 2008 COELHO ET AL. HABITAT USE BY MANED WOLVES 99 TABLE 1. Vegetation cover and land use in our study area in a cerrado Atlantic forest transition zone in Brazil, and their use by the female and male maned wolves (Chrysocyon brachyurus). a Study area Female (%) Male (%) Vegetation cover Area (km 2 ) % area Day wet Day dry Night wet Night dry Reprod. day Reprod. night Day wet Day dry Night wet Night dry Water Rain forest Candeia forest Rocky fields Meadows Farmland Bare soil Eucalyptus Rocky areas Mining area Total (n) NR NR a Wet ¼ wet season; dry ¼ dry season; Reprod. ¼ reproduction; NR ¼ not relevant. their potential as well as their actual habitat (Garshelis 2000). Our attempts to capture maned wolves indicated that the 2 individuals used in our study probably did not have neighboring pairs and their home range was therefore not socially limited by territorial behavior (Dietz 1984). The reserve is surround by high mountains (.2,200 m in elevation) and these seemed to be a spatially limiting factor, which resulted in us creating the aforementioned rectangle rather than a square. The analysis and interpretation of satellite images from the years 2000 and 2002 was done using the software ArcGIS version 8.2 (Environmental Systems Research Institute 2002). This software permitted us to identify the following information for each fix (location used by maned wolves) determined by the GPS tracking collars: vegetation type or land use, elevation, distance to human constructions (i.e., buildings), distance to roads and trails, and distance to water sources (lakes, rivers, and streams). To confirm the accuracy of these data, a botanist was sent to verify these data at each of the locations used by the maned wolves (i.e., we ground-truthed 100% of our data); no discrepancy was detected. Statistical analysis. Home-range data were calculated using the minimum convex polygon (MCP) method in the software Biotas version 1.3 (de Melo et al. 2007) and core area was calculated using 50% ellipses (Cooper et al. 2006). Following the recommendations of Garshelis (2000), data were analyzed by individual because of possible sex differences in habitat selection. Furthermore, given that maned wolves are largely nocturnal, we separated the data into day and night. Finally, the environment where we studied maned wolves is highly seasonal; therefore, data were further subdivided into wet and dry season. During the course of the study, the female gave birth to a pup; we therefore separated these data for analysis. In total, data were grouped into 10 types: female day dry season, female night dry season, female day wet season, female night wet season, female day reproduction, female night reproduction, male day dry season, male night dry season, male day wet season, and male night wet season. The factors we analyzed in relation to these groups of data were vegetation type and land use (10 categories), proximity to buildings (7 categories each of 250 m, starting at m), proximity to roads or trails (7 categories each of 250 m, starting at m), elevation (5 categories each of 250 m, starting at 750 1,000 m), and proximity to water (4 categories each of 250 m, starting at m). These data all were analyzed by chi-square tests, with our expected data being calculated from interpretation of the satellite image (Table 1). When a category had,5 counts in a cell, it was eliminated from the analysis (such low counts can invalidate the chisquare test Siegel and Castellan 1988), therefore our degrees of freedom are not always the number of categories minus 1. In the case of statistically significant results (P, 0.05), we conducted residual analyses to determine where significant differences were occurring (Siegel and Castellan 1988). Positive residuals with values.2 show that an individual was associated with the factor more than expected by chance, whereas negative residuals with values, 2 indicate that an animal was significantly avoiding the factor. RESULTS Home range. The home ranges of the male and female maned wolves, using all the available data for each individual and calculated using the minimum convex polygon method (MCP100) were km 2 for the male and km 2 for the female (total number of fixes used is shown in Table 1). Using the MCP method and 95% of the data (MCP95), the home range of the male reduced to km 2 and that of the female reduced to km 2. Sizes of the home ranges reached asymptotes at 155 and 220 fixes, for the male and female, respectively (however, see de Melo et al. 2007). The degree of overlap of their home ranges was.90%. A frequency eclipse analysis of core areas, using only 50% of the data, showed that the core areas of both individuals were concentrated around the point of supplemental feeding; however, the core areas were still relatively large (10.68 km 2 and 7.64 km 2, for the male and female, respectively). During her reproductive phase, which occurred during the dry season, the female reduced her home range to km 2 (MCP100) or km 2 (MCP95), and this area showed a 100% overlap with her home range when nonreproductive. The maximum distance between 2 points used by 1 individual was km.

4 100 JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY Vol. 89, No. 1 TABLE 2. Results of chi-square tests for use of different vegetation cover or land use by maned wolves (Chrysocyon brachyurus). Individual Season Day/night v 2 d.f. P Female Wet Day ,0.001 Female Wet Night ,0.001 Female Dry Day ,0.001 Female Dry Night ,0.001 Female Reproductive Day ,0.001 Female Reproductive Night ,0.001 Male Wet Day ,0.001 Male Wet Night ,0.001 Male Dry Day ,0.001 Male Dry Night ,0.01 Vegetation. The chi-square analyses showed that maned wolves were not using their environment in proportion to the vegetation types available (Table 2). The residual analyses showed that maned wolves were actively avoiding rain forest and using rocky fields disproportionately (Fig. 1). This avoidance of rain forest and use of rocky fields was particularly pronounced in the female during her reproductive phase (Table 2; Fig. 1). Buildings. The chi-square tests showed that the maned wolves were associating significantly with buildings (Table 3). Maned wolves were located disproportionately close to buildings during the night (,250 m) and were indifferent to buildings during the day. These effects were most pronounced during the wet season for both male and female at night (Table 3) and for the female during reproduction (Table 3). Standardized residuals were only significant for the distance category of m and were positive in all cases. Roads and trails. The chi-square tests showed that the maned wolves were associating significantly with roads and trails (Table 4). Standardized residual analyses showed that during the nights the wolves were located disproportionately close to trails (,250 m), and both during the day and night they avoided distances.1,000 m from roads and trails. However, during the day maned wolves were indifferent about distances,1,000 m from trails. Elevation. The maned wolves showed a nonrandom use of elevation (Table 5). Standardized residual analyses showed a strong preference for elevations of 1,251 1,500 m, avoidance of elevations,1,250 m, and indifference to elevations.1,501 m. Hydrology. The only statistically significant relationship with hydrology was for habitat use by the female during her reproductive phase (day: v 2 ¼ 9.58, d.f. ¼ 1, P, 0.01; night: v 2 ¼ 6.15, d.f. ¼ 1, P, 0.05). Standardized residual analyses showed that she avoided distances.250 m from water; however, her den site was within 250 m of water. The maximum distance from water by a maned wolf in this study was 625 m, with a maximum potential distance of 950 m. DISCUSSION Examination of our data shows that even in an environment with abundant rain forest and a much smaller area of rocky fields, wild maned wolves disproportionately used the cerradotype habitat and avoided the rain forest. Furthermore, maned wolves associated strongly with environmental features that can benefit them; for example, the strong association with buildings was due to supplemental feeding occurring there, whereas the strong association with roads and trails was likely due to the ease of locomotion provided by these features. The strong preference for elevation seemed to be related to the elevation at the source of supplemental feeding, and the majority of the cerrado habitat also was at this elevation. Because of the high density of water sources in the reserve, it is perhaps not surprising that maned wolves showed little association with their presence except for the female during her reproductive phase. Examination of our data demonstrates that wild maned wolves have a preference for cerrado-type habitats. The majority of studies of wild maned wolves have been conducted in open habitats such as cerrado where maned wolves are suggested to be more common (Bueno et al. 2002; Dietz 1984; Motta-Junior and Martins 2002; Motta-Junior et al. 1996). However, surveys of maned wolves have not been undertaken in closed habitats such as forests. This preference for open habitats is probably due to maned wolves being highly adapted to hunting small prey in open environments (i.e., they possess disproportionately long legs, acute vision, and acute hearing). However, rain forests, as indicated by litterfall, are more productive habitats than the cerrado (Nardoto et al. 2006). Food availability in the cerrado is greater during the dry season (Alho et al. 1986) than in the wet season, when availability of fruit and insects is normally greater in forests such as the Atlantic forest (Develey and Peres 2000). However, maned wolves are not anatomically designed to exploit this increased food availability in the rain forest; for example, they are unable to climb trees. Preservation of cerrado habitat in Brazil will probably best meet the requirements of maned wolves for survival. Although the study of Santos et al. (2003) showed that maned wolves are able to use cattle pastures in former Atlantic forest habitat, that study focused primarily on food habits of maned wolves. Thus, although the fragmentation of the Atlantic forest due to converting land to agricultural use (specifically for the production of cattle) may have allowed the maned wolf to expand its distribution into the Atlantic forest zone in Brazil, this habitat may be suboptimal for maned wolves. Our study showed that maned wolves avoided rain forest and never used farmland, supporting this hypothesis. However, to properly test this hypothesis, a study of reproductive success of maned wolves in the 2 habitat types is needed. Presently, both the cerrado and the Atlantic forest are biodiversity hotspots under threat from agricultural exploitation (Myers et al. 2000) and in the long-term this may have adverse consequences for populations of maned wolves. It should be noted that although many of our telemetry fixes occurred close to the point of supplemental feeding, the wolves travelled extensively within the reserve, as indicated by their home-range sizes, which are within the range of those found in other studies ( km 2 Carvalho and Vasconcellos 1995; de Melo et al. 2007; Dietz 1984). The core areas of the

5 February 2008 COELHO ET AL. HABITAT USE BY MANED WOLVES 101 FIG. 1. Standardized residual analyses of different habitat types used by maned wolves. maned wolves in our study also were considerable ( km 2 ). Furthermore, the supplemental feeding was not sufficient to eliminate all hunting behavior; a concurrent study on the diet of these animals showed that in addition to the supplemental food, they had a diet comparable to other maned wolves (Silva and Talamoni 2004). This study estimated that 70% of their diet came from natural sources. Therefore, we can conclude that although the supplemental feeding did modify some aspects of the behavior of the maned wolves in our study, it did not overwhelmingly modify behavior or habitat use (Cooper et al. 2006). The association of maned wolves with buildings was a consequence of supplemental feeding occurring at this location. There have been various reports in the Brazilian media of

6 102 JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY Vol. 89, No. 1 TABLE 3. Results of chi-square tests for proximity of maned wolves (Chrysocyon brachyurus) to buildings. Individual Season Day/night v 2 d.f. P Female Wet Day ,0.001 Female Wet Night ,0.001 Female Dry Day ,0.05 Female Dry Night ,0.001 Female Reproductive Day ,0.01 Female Reproductive Night ,0.001 Male Wet Day ,0.001 Male Wet Night ,0.001 Male Dry Day ,0.01 Male Dry Night ,0.001 wild maned wolves approaching urban areas or farmhouses to receive supplemental feeding. This strong affinity for buildings was most pronounced at night when maned wolves naturally would be hunting in the wild. Coincidently, the supplemental food during our study was usually made available during the hours of darkness. Although the ultimate impact of supplemental feeding of these wild maned wolves can be debated, it obviously allows individuals to have easy access to a highquality food source. During supplemental feeding, the maned wolves were wary of the presence of humans (C. M. Coelho, in litt.), however, the Brazilian media have shown films of maned wolves entering homes to be fed. The reduction of natural habitat combined with the growth of Brazilian cities means that such contacts between people and wild animals will increase. The association of maned wolves with roads and trails can be explained as a means by which wild maned wolves can save energy and travel a long distances rapidly. For example, caribou (Rangifer tarandus) preferentially use roads as migration routes, despite the fact that this results in collisions with vehicles and increased wolf predation (Trombulak and Frissell 2000). In our study site, there have been no collisions reported with maned wolves on roads. On the public highway system in Brazil, however, maned wolves are victims of collisions (C. M. Coelho, in litt.), although this problem has not received proper quantification. Trail systems obviously do not pose risks for collisions with vehicles and, therefore, offer an efficient route for maned wolves to travel. As for their association with buildings, examination of our data shows a much more pronounced association with roads and trails at TABLE 4. Results of chi-square tests for proximity of maned wolves (Chrysocyon brachyurus) to roads and trails. Individual Season Day/night v 2 d.f. P Female Wet Day ,0.001 Female Wet Night ,0.001 Female Dry Day ,0.05 Female Dry Night ,0.001 Female Reproductive Day ,0.001 Female Reproductive Night ,0.001 Male Wet Day ,0.001 Male Wet Night ,0.01 Male Dry Day ,0.001 Male Dry Night ,0.001 TABLE 5. Results of chi-square tests for association of maned wolves (Chrysocyon brachyurus) with elevation. Individual Season Day/night v 2 d.f. P Female Wet Day ,0.001 Female Wet Night ,0.001 Female Dry Day ,0.001 Female Dry Night ,0.001 Female Reproductive Day ,0.001 Female Reproductive Night ,0.001 Male Wet Day ,0.001 Male Wet Night ,0.001 Male Dry Day ,0.001 Male Dry Night ,0.001 night, which coincides with natural hunting activity of wild maned wolves (de Melo et al. 2007; Sábato et al. 2006). In our study, elevation, the site where supplemental feeding occurred, and vegetation type all were confounded. The preferred rocky fields and hotel both occurred at an elevation of 1,250 1,500 m; it is therefore not possible to determine whether maned wolves had a preferred elevation. However, our results did show that maned wolves avoided elevations lower than 1,250 m, but again this seems to be due to nonpreferred vegetation cover and land use at these lower elevations (e.g., bare soil, eucalyptus, and mining area). In other locations within Brazil, maned wolves can be found at lower elevations when their preferred vegetation types (i.e., cerrado) occur at these elevations. However, the rocky fields (campo rupestre) preferred in this study normally occur on the tops of high tablelands in the Brazilian cerrado biome at altitudes between 1,000 m and 1,800 m (Eiten 1992). The indifference of maned wolves to elevations.1,500 m is likely an artifact of low cell counts in the chi-square tests rather than real indifference. This was demonstrated by their avoidance of rocky areas, which occurred mainly at higher elevations. The high density of water sources in our study area meant that it was difficult to determine the importance of this resource to maned wolves. For example, 84.17% of the reserve was within 250 m of a water source. The one interesting result was that when the female gave birth, she located her den,250 m from a water source. This perhaps reflected the need of a lactating female for water. Time of day had a greater influence than did season on most of the associations we detected. It was not possible to separate the influence of reproduction from that of season. Given that maned wolves normally hunt at night (de Melo et al. 2007; Dietz 1984) and are unable to take advantage of the greater availability of fruit and insects in the Atlantic forest during the wet season (Develey and Peres 2000), it is not surprising that time of day was a more important factor than season on the variables that we measured. Outside of the reproductive season, the effect of sex on the variables measured seemed to be negligible. Unfortunately, because of equipment failure, we do not have data on the male during the reproductive phase, when it is most likely that differences in data from the male and female would be detected (de Melo et al. 2007). During her reproductive phase, the female increased use of rocky fields

7 February 2008 COELHO ET AL. HABITAT USE BY MANED WOLVES 103 and showed greater association with buildings and roads and trails, which are all probably a result of her greater need for energy during lactation. The increase in use of rocky fields probably reflected increased hunting opportunities, the association with buildings reflected the availability of supplemental food, and the use of roads and trails provided a means to reduce costs of locomotion and reduce time away from the pup. We have only informal observations on the behaviors performed in different habitat types. Maned wolves used the cerrado for hunting at night, and for reproduction; forest was used sometimes during the day for resting and at night the maned wolves were seen moving through the rain forest. Thus, although maned wolves can be found in a variety of environments in Brazil, examination of our data shows that their classic habitat, the cerrado, seems to be the most important habitat to emphasize for their conservation. However, in terms of survival and reproduction, this conclusion needs to be confirmed by an experiment designed to examine demographic responses to habitat (Garshelis 2000). RESUMO Os animais devem utilizar os hábitats que aumentam sua probabilidade de sobrevivência e sua taxa de reprodução; assim, informação sobre o uso de hábitat pode ser útil em estudos ecológicos e de conservação. Utilizando colares de global positioning system (GPS) para rastrear animais, estudamos o uso de hábitat por um casal de Chrysocyon brachyurus (lobo-guará) vivendo em zona de transição entre mata atlântica e cerrado. Durante o nosso estudo, houve o nascimento de filhotes, e assim avaliamos como a reprodução afeta o uso de hábitat. Para investigar o uso do hábitat, mapeamos as localizaç~oes de GPS em cima de imagens de satélite com dados geográficos e de vegetação. Investigamos o uso de hábitat por lobos-guará em relação à cobertura vegetal, proximidade de prédios, proximidade de estradas, elevação, e distância até água. Os lobos-guará mostraram forte preferência por campos-rupestres, que é um sub-hábitat de cerrado, e forte evitação por mata atlântica. Também os lobos-guará mostraram forte associação com prédios e estradas durante a noite, provavelmente devido à comida suplementar fornecida a esses animais e à facilitação de locomoção nessas áreas. O fator elevação foi confundido com o tipo de hábitat e a localização da comida suplementar, assim, não foi possível interpretar este fator. A fêmea permaneceu dentro de um raio de 250 m distante de água quando ela estava em lactação. Embora, os lobos-guará possam ser flexíveis em seus comportamentos em termos de uso de hábitat, eles mostraram forte preferência por ambientes abertos como o cerrado, que é especialmente importante durante o período de reprodução. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank Padres Célio and Sebastião and Consuelo from Caraça Private Natural Heritage Reserve for giving us permission to conduct our study in their reserve. The research in this paper was generously funded by Companhia Energética de Minas Gerais (energy company of Minas Gerais), and was conducted in compliance with all relevant state and federal laws in Brazil. We also wish to thank Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos for the license to conduct this research. Finally, we are grateful to H. Buchanan-Smith, University of Stirling, for her comments on this manuscript. LITERATURE CITED ALHO, C. J. R., L. A. PEREIRA, AND A. C. PAULA Patterns of habitat utilization by small mammal populations in cerrado biome of central Brazil. 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