Mamíferos silvestres en plantaciones forestales: ¿Una oportunidad para su conservación?

Forest plantations are monocultures that have been increasing worldwide. These systems are less diverse compared to original forest, but they may contribute to the conservation of local biodiversity since these are used by many species, even some of conservation concern. The relative abundance and the true diversity were measured for volant and non-volant medium and large mammals in five tree plantations projects in the Andean and Caribbean regions of Colombia, and compared with native forest. 78 % and 71 % of the mammals present in the five localities were registered inside the coniferous and teak plantations, respectively. Threatened species such as Leopardus tigrinus and Saguinus Oedipus, were found in both types of tree plantations. The diversity profiles were similar between the native forest and tree plantations in almost all groups, only terrestrial mammals in coniferus plantations had significant differences. Differences in relative abundance between both forest and plantations were found for all mammal groups. We observed lower mammalian abundance in the tree plantations, which indicates that these modified ecosystems provide lower quality habitat for mammals, but there were far from being “green deserts”, on the contrary they were diverse systems. Species richness and the presence of threatened species are attributes that must be included in plantation management plans and in regional landscape designs.