Faunal monitoring is an essential procedure to evaluate the efficiency of a conservation unit. The aims of this paper were to evaluate the use of sand-plots to record mammal tracks for estimating species richness in habitats crossed by roads and to analyze the applicability of this method to propose a monitoring program. The survey was carried out in Rio Doce State Park, MG, in two sampling grids composed by 3 parallel transects at different distances from the forest (12, 82 and 152 m ), monitored from March to November 2000. Species richness estimates were obtained by applying the EstimateS program and the MONITOR program to calculate the power of the analysis to estimate a probability of detection (p=0.90) of a decline (5%)in the number of species on the road borders. Species richness estimates in the transects varied between 5.99 (SD 0.99) and 15.07 (SD 1.75). The results indicate that a monitoring program needs at least 3 surveys per year during 4 consecutive years using the same sampling protocol to detect a 5% decline in species richness on the road, with 0.90 probability. The use of sand plots is an easy-to use method that can be applied to estimate mammal species richness, and provide important information to management and conservation of these species.
Mammals; monitoring program; sand plots
