Impact of human disturbance on mammalian assemblages among National Parks in central Mexico

Understanding the effects of human disturbance on species assemblages is important for ecological and conservation purposes. This study aimed to compare mammalian assemblages in six polygons with different levels of human disturbance among three National Parks. To achieve this, in each site, eleven camera traps were systematically randomly placed and operated from January 2022 to February 2023. We determined the level of human disturbance in the polygons using the human footprint index. To compare mammalian assemblages, we calculated diversity using Hill’s numbers, assemblage structure with rank-abundance curves, and species composition through an unweighted pair-group average (UPGMA) clustering analysis. The results showed that there are fourteen species of medium and large sized mammals in the study area, with a predominance of generalist carnivores. The highest diversity values were obtained at the highest human footprint index value (13.59). In five polygons there were exclusive species, which highlights the importance of not only conserving the sites with the highest species richness, but also those where exclusive species were detected. This study determines the medium and large sized mammalian assemblages’ status, identifies areas of high diversity, and contributes to biological knowledge on a poorly studied region, that will help formulate conservation and restoration strategies.