Conservation-related issues
The combination of sampling biases, plus ecologic and taxonomic
knowledge gaps, can lead to misguided conservation decisions. For
example, similarly to what had already reported for bats
(Delgado-Jaramillo et al., 2020), most of the coldspots in oursensu stricto map (Fig. 2A) are placed along areas severely
deforested during the last decades, particularly along the contact zone
between Amazonia and Cerrado in the so-called “arch of deforestation”
(Becker, 2005). Such coldspots could erroneously be interpreted as
regions of lower conservation interest, instead of originated by the
absence of information after local extinctions prompted by anthropic
impacts (Delgado-Jaramillo et al., 2020).
The greater diversity of Strigidae within the Atlantic forest
corresponds to an extensively degraded biome with small-sized and sparse
protected areas, whose efficiency is lower than other regions, such as
the Amazonia (Sobral-Souza et al., 2018). Worse yet, the buffer zones
around these protected areas in the economically prosperous Brazilian
regions tend to be as degraded as the surrounding unprotected ones
(Almeida-Rocha & Peres, 2021). Bird species were already extinct and
others were extirpated, from large parts of the Atlantic Forest,
especially the Pernambuco Centre of Endemism in northeast Brazil
(Develey & Phalan, 2021). Besides the probably extinct Pernambuco
pygmy-owl (G. mooreorum ), the spectacled owl (Pulsatrix
perspicillata pulsatrix ) may be extinct in most of its range (Leal &
Assis, 1993). Thus, we agree with Oliveira et al. (2017) who highlighted
the deficiencies of the Brazilian network of protected areas given the
combination of the scarce knowledge on their biodiversity and an
inadequate spatial disposition which offers limited or no protection to
most species and even evolutionary lineages. We also agree with Jenkins
et al. (2015), regarding the need to substantially improve the network
of protected areas in Brazil, with an emphasis in the Atlantic forest.