Although great part of its vegetation has been considerably reduced, the Atlantic Rainforest still presents continuous forests in good conditions. However, these areas are losing essential species for the maintenance of the ecosystem dynamics, such as top predators. The main objectives of the National Action Plans (NAP) for feline species that occur in the Atlantic Rainforest is to broaden knowledge on biology, ecology and occurrence area of these species. In this setting, the present proposal intends to estimate feline population in conserved areas of the Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest. It also focuses to attend NAPs goals related to spacial modeling, connectivity and key locations of felines in this biome. This study gathers researchers of renowned institutes and integrates research fields in mammal ecology, biodiversity conservation and ecological modeling. The methods include the use of camera traps for abundance estimates, density and co-occurrence in five Conservation Units. Obtained points will also be incorporated to the existing base to generate species distribution models for the Atlantic Rainforest. The integration of different researchers/ institutions and the application of advanced tools will enable inter, multi and transversal performance on behalf of conservation of the Atlantic Rainforest biome, species and ecological functions. In addition, the integration of this project with three others in the same area will result in one of the greatest conservation efforts registered for a hotspot of biodiversity. The results will also contribute to six goals of NAP for Endangered Feline Species, coordinated by CENAP/ICMBio.

Although great part of its vegetation has been considerably reduced, the Atlantic Rainforest still presents continuous forests in good conditions. However, these areas are losing essential species for the maintenance of the ecosystem dynamics, such as top predators. The main objectives of the National Action Plans (NAP) for feline species that occur in the Atlantic Rainforest is to broaden knowledge on biology, ecology and occurrence area of these species. In this setting, the present proposal intends to estimate feline population in conserved areas of the Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest. It also focuses to attend NAPs goals related to spacial modeling, connectivity and key locations of felines in this biome. This study gathers researchers of renowned institutes and integrates research fields in mammal ecology, biodiversity conservation and ecological modeling. The methods include the use of camera traps for abundance estimates, density and co-occurrence in five Conservation Units. Obtained points will also be incorporated to the existing base to generate species distribution models for the Atlantic Rainforest. The integration of different researchers/ institutions and the application of advanced tools will enable inter, multi and transversal performance on behalf of conservation of the Atlantic Rainforest biome, species and ecological functions. In addition, the integration of this project with three others in the same area will result in one of the greatest conservation efforts registered for a hotspot of biodiversity. The results will also contribute to six goals of NAP for Endangered Feline Species, coordinated by CENAP/ICMBio.