Among Neotropical cracids (Galliformes), many taxa are declining rapidly in population size and facing local extinction. However, in the Brazilian Pantanal, several species occur sympatrically and in ...abundant numbers to allow for long-term studies. Therefore, the study was intended to collect data and statistically evaluate the life history patterns of Bare-faced Curassow (Crax fasciolata), a high-conservation-priority species. Additionally, the effect of applying commonly used independence filters on camera trap data was evaluated. The study was conducted in the SESC Pantanal, Baía das Pedras, Mato Grosso, Brazil, a private protected area of approximately 4200 ha. Between July 2015 and December 2017 (4768 sampling days), 37 sampling locations were monitored with camera traps placed in a regular grid with a spacing of 1 km. Crax fasciolata was detected at 26 (70.27%) of them, with 357 independent captures (554 individuals). Capture success differed among the four seasonal periods, being highest during the receding and lowest during the high-water period. The seasonal difference was more pronounced in the savanna, with significantly lower activity during the rising period and higher activity during the receding period, while it was more uniform in forest-dominated areas. Groups with offspring were more active during the period of receding water, indicating the peak of reproductive activity in the months before. The daily activity of the species followed a bimodal pattern, with peaks between 06:00 and 07:00 and 16:00 and 17:00. Daily activity rhythms were similar when compared between seasonal periods, sexes, and adults with or without offspring and differed between two habitats (more homogeneous in the forest). The mean detected group size was 1.55 ± 0.81 SD, with four animals exhibiting the largest observed aggregation. Larger unisexual aggregations of adults were not observed. The offspring sex ratio was significantly female-skewed at 0.51:1.00, while the adult sex ratio was considered equal at 1.05:1.00 (male:female). The use of different independence filters did not alter the BFC general activity pattern estimates. Cracids can be considered important bioindicators of habitat quality. The results of this study outline the importance of the Pantanal as a stronghold for this species and the privately protected areas with low anthropogenic activity as highly beneficial to its populations.
Knowledge of the reproductive biology of Bare-faced Curassows (BFC) from their natural habitats is very limited. Our study covers a two-and-a-half year breeding phenology on BFC in the northern ...Pantanal (Mato Grosso State, Brazil) with the main objective of collecting information on reproduction biology to contribute to future conservation management strategies of this cracid, which received a recent status of "High Conservation Priority". The study was conducted at the SESC Pantanal, Baía das Pedras, Mato Grosso, Brazil (16°29′55″S, 56°24′46″W), a private protected area of approximately 4,200 ha. Between July 2015 and December 2017, 37 sampling locations were monitored with camera traps placed in a regular grid with a spacing of 1 km. Offspring were detected at least once at 8 locations, namely, in March, April, and May 2016 and in June, July, October, and November 2017, always together with parent(s). Territorial overlap between different family groups was detected. The camera trap dataset was supplemented by data from Citizen Science Projects (i.e., eBird) and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). Based on feather developmental stages and body size, offspring were classified into different age classes. Age determination indicates that breeding occurs year-round in the northern Pantanal region, supported by eBird and GBIF data. The use of a grid-based design for future camera-trapping studies of BFCs is strongly recommended. Our study is of biological relevance for conservation management projects since data were collected in an area with low anthropogenic disturbance and intact ecosystem services.
Millimeter-wave (mmWave) channel sparsity is widely exploited to reduce the complexity of compressed sensing and beamtracking algorithms for 5G, yet there are still many misconceptions about it: that ...it arises from pencilbeam antennas admitting just a few paths, that the channel in fact has just a few paths, and that the channel is always sparse. What is missing to confirm these conjectures is a measurement-based analysis, to our knowledge conducted by only two papers thus far, however, both at microwave (5 GHz), in a single environment, and based on just a few (<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">\leq</tex-math></inline-formula>49) measurements. For conclusive analysis on mmWave sparsity, we have collected measurements with our high-resolution 3-D double-directional 60 GHz channel sounder in three indoor and two outdoor environments, comprising a total of 750 measurements while investigating both line-of-sight (LoS) and obstructed LoS (OLoS) conditions. We learned that in LoS, the channel is always sparse that sparsity drops notably from LoS to OLoS and that mmWave sparsity is inherent to the channel itself-not to pencilbeam antennas-since our sounder has omnidirectional field-of-view. We also propose a sparsity metric that accounts for channels with just a few paths, which we found to occur in some environments.
