The available information on the habitat selection of maned
sloths comes from one adult sloth and two juveniles from a single
plantation in Southern Bahia (Cassano et al., 2011). This study
suggested that sloths use mature forests and that they may prefer
shaded cacao plantations and avoids pastures, swamps, or early
secondary forests (Cassano et al., 2011).
Given the scarcity of data on the home range and habitat selection
of maned sloths and their necessity for conservation purposes,
we evaluated patterns of maned sloths’ habitat use at different
scales within the landscape of Southern Bahia. More specifically,
we aimed to (i) estimate the home range size of maned sloths in
Southern Bahia, (ii) investigate the species’ habitat selection and its
level of congruence across four different spatial scales (landscape,
home range, forest patch, and tree levels), and (iii) identify features
connected to habitat preference or avoidance in each spatial scale