Movement ecology of vulnerable lowland tapirs between areas of varying human disturbance.
E P MediciS MezziniC H FlemingJ M CalabreseMichael J NoonanPublished in: Movement ecology (2022)
Contrary to our expectations, although we observed individual variability in lowland tapir space use and movement, human impacts on the landscape also had no measurable effect on their movement. Lowland tapir movement behaviour thus appears to exhibit very little phenotypic plasticity in response to human disturbance. Crucially, the lack of any detectable response to anthropogenic disturbance suggests that human modified habitats risk being ecological traps for tapirs and this information should be factored into conservation actions and species management aimed towards protecting lowland tapir populations.