Agroforestry systems play fundamental roles for wildlife conservation, but are prone to disturbances from management practices aiming at increasing local productivity. This work investigates the small mammal assemblages present in cacao agroforests, which differ in shade tree density. We tested the prediction that higher tree density increases shade level, analyzed how some environmental variables important for small mammals (vegetation complexity, tree basal area, and invertebrate biomass) vary across the shade level gradient, and how the assemblages respond to these variations. We also tested the effect of the environmental variables on the abundance of the three most common species: Rhipidomys mastacalis, Hylaeamys seuanezi, and Marmosa murina. We captured 651 individuals belonging to 18 species. A positive relationship was observed between an abundance of non‐forest specialists and tree basal area, while species diversity within this group showed positive association with vegetation complexity. Assemblage structure (described by a matrix of species abundance per site) was not affected by our environmental variables, but R. mastacalis was more abundant in sites with lower vegetation complexity. Higher shade levels in cacao agroforest tended to occur in sites with greater tree basal area, which was not a good predictor of small mammal diversity. This suggests that environmental management to reduce shade with the purpose of increasing cacao productivity is not necessarily negative for small mammal conservation. Species diversity was favored by structurally complex systems, a possible response to greater niche diversity.

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遮阴色更好吗？农林业管理对小型哺乳动物多样性的影响

农林业系统在野生动植物保护中起着基本作用，但易于受到旨在提高当地生产力的管理实践的干扰。这项工作调查了可可农林中存在的小型哺乳动物群落，它们的荫树密度不同。我们测试了更高的树木密度会增加阴影水平的预测，分析了对小型哺乳动物重要的一些环境变量（植被复杂性，树木基础面积和无脊椎动物生物量）如何在阴影水平梯度上变化，以及组合如何响应这些变化。我们还测试了环境变量对三种最常见物种的丰度的影响：乳突线虫（Rhipidomys mastacalis），Hylaeamys seuanezi和Marmosa murina。我们捕获了651个来自18个物种的个体。大量的非森林专家与树木基础面积之间存在正相关关系，而这一组中的物种多样性与植被复杂性呈正相关关系。组装结构（由每个站点的物种丰富度矩阵来描述）不受我们的环境变量影响，但受乳齿红斑病菌的影响在植被复杂度较低的地区更为丰富。可可农用林中较高的树荫水平往往发生在树木基础面积较大的地方，这并不是哺乳动物多样性小的良好预测指标。这表明以增加可可生产力为目的的减少阴影的环境管理对小型哺乳动物的保护不一定不利。结构复杂的系统有利于物种多样性，这可能是对更大的生态位多样性的反应。