Living on the edge: forest edge effects on microclimate and terrestrial mammal activity in disturbed lowland forest in Sumatra, Indonesia HELEN D. S LA TER,PHI LL IPA K. GIL LINGHAM,VIC T O RI A P RATT,BEN E AT O N


S IM O N F LET C H E R,ABDULLA H ABDULLAH,S UPRIA D I and AMANDA H. KORS T JE NS


Abstract Species–environment relationships are often stud- ied at large spatial scales, but effective conservation requires an understanding of local-scale environmental drivers and pressures. Widespread degradation and fragmentation of forests have increased the proportion of tropical mammal habitat that is affected by edge effects. Edge effects include greater exposure to anthropogenic disturbance and abiotic changes that synergistically influence how well populations can cope with climate change. Weinvestigated relationships between distance to the forest edge, forest structure, micro- climate and terrestrial mammal detections in a selectively logged forest at the boundary of Gunung Leuser National Park in Sumatra, Indonesia. We collected mammal detec- tion data from motion-activated camera traps, microclimate data from automated climate data loggers and forest struc- ture data from vegetation plots. Daily mean and maximum temperatures significantly decreased with distance from the forest edge, whereas tree height and minimum temperature increased. Mammal diversity was lower at the forest edge compared to the interior. Mammals were detected less frequently at the forest edge, although this relationship varied between mammal orders. Mammal detections were best explained by temperature, tree height and tree diameter at breast height. These results demonstrate that abiotic changes in forests brought on by edge effects have negative impacts on mammals, but these effects vary between mam- mal taxa because of differing sensitivities to human distur- bance. Our findings highlight the importance of considering local-scale environmental drivers in determining species– environment relationships to identify key habitat features


HELEN D. SLATER (Corresponding author,


i7999848@bournemouth.ac.uk), PHILLIPA K. GILLINGHAM ( 0002-9499-7627) and AMANDA H. KORSTJENS (


orcid.org/0000-0002-9362-5370, orcid.org/0000-


orcid.org/0000-0002-9587-


4020) Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, Bournemouth University, Fern Barrow, Poole, UK


VICTORIA PRATT ( orcid.org/0000-0002-5969-0064), BEN EATON ( orcid.org/


0000-0001-8008-0415) and SIMON FLETCHER Invisible Flock, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, UK


ABDULLAH ABDULLAH*( orcid.org/0000-0002-8435-1005) Department of Biology Education, Syiah Kuala University, Banda Aceh, Indonesia


SUPRIADI Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme, Medan, Indonesia


*Also at: Research Centre for Elephant and Biodiversity Conservation, Banda Aceh, Indonesia


Received 29 March 2022. Revision requested 13 July 2022. Accepted 20 February 2023. First published online 24 July 2023.


such as microclimate refuges that should be prioritized in ecosystem management.


Keywords Camera trap, edge effects, forest edge, fragmen- tation, habitat use, Indonesia, mammals, remote monitoring


The supplementary material for this article is available at doi.org/10.1017/S0030605323000212


Introduction


to prevent mammal extinctions and establish healthy, re- silient populations globally. High-quality data on species distribution and habitats are needed to do this effectively, but these are lacking for many species (Burivalova et al., 2019). Species distributions and habitat suitability are often inferred from outdated survey data or educated guesses based on expert knowledge (IUCN, 2021a). Research ac- tivities often focus on charismatic and/or threatened spe- cies, but effective conservation requires information on whole communities, including common and invasive spe- cies. Up-to-date species data, high-quality environmental data and ongoing monitoring are necessary to determine the status of biodiversity, examine the outcomes of con- servation actions and facilitate adaptive management. Accurate predictions of species responses to environ-


A


mental changes are essential for effective long-term conser- vation. Most studies of species–environment relationships use species distribution models at large spatial and temporal scales. The environmental predictors used in species distri- bution models are often derived from remote sensing data with coarse spatial and temporal resolutions (e.g. annual climate data from WorldClim; Hijmans et al., 2015). Such large-scale data are generally unsuitable for local-scale conservation planning and practice because of their low pre- cision at smaller scales, and their inability to account for local population stresses such as edge effects or exploitation (Tulloch et al., 2016). A modelling framework to determine species–environment relationships at local scales is needed to provide information on local drivers of population de- clines and biodiversity loss, and to facilitate long-term con- servation planning. Developing such a framework requires


This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Oryx, 2024, 58(2), 228–239 © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605323000212


ddressing key drivers of biodiversity loss such as habi- tat loss, fragmentation and climate change is essential


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