Brenda Munoz Vazquez
Central American brocket deer is a key species for the tropical ecosystems that it inhabits. This brocket deer is highly endangered by habitat loss and illegal hunting. Currently its distribution is fragmentary and this project pretends to determine if the species is capable of moving between the patches of the cloud forest and rainforest that still remain in the landscape based on spatial ecology analyses, habitat evaluation and population genetics analysis. We will also conduct community workshops with the communities in the Biosphere Reserve Mountain Cloud Forests of Hidalgo, Puebla and Veracruz in Mexico, to support strategies that increase the possibilities of conserving this deer species in the wild.
Female fawn red brocket deer. ©Brenda Munoz.
Central American brocket deer is the smallest deer in Mexico and it inhabits the most endangered ecosystems worldwide: cloud forest and rainforest. Because of habitat loss and fragmentation caused for agriculture and livestock purposes and the intense subsistence hunt, the brocket deer populations have been diminished but we don´t know exactly at what point, since the efforts that have been made until now to know a little more about its biology and conservation problems are limited and this does not permit to establish suitable strategies for the long term species conservation. Central brocket deer conservation is really relevant because it is a key species in the ecosystem due to its important role as seed predator and disperser besides it is and important consumer of the plant biomass and it is considered as an important prey for big predators such as cougars and jaguars and a source of protein for indigenous communities that still consume wild animals.
In this project we will integrate ecological, ethological and molecular tools to get knowledge about the conservation status of the populations. We will monitor 4 individuals of red brocket deer with GPS radio collars during 2 consecutive years, besides we will collect faecal pellets, evaluate the habitat and analyse the population genetics. Likewise we would coordinate workshops dedicated to environmental education with kids and adults of the community.
This work will allow us to determine if Central American brocket deer individuals are capable of moving between suitable habitat patches and go through barriers such as pasturelands, roads and human villages and then maintain a healthy genetic flow that allows it to have a viable effective population size for surviving.
We also want to know its main activity patterns, behaviour, habitat preferences and to integrate indigenous and mestizo communities in the monitoring and conservation of the deer, the cloud forests and rainforests and by consequence the biodiversity and its interactions.