Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) plantations are one of the most rapidly expanding agroecosystems in the tropics, including Latin America. While many studies have demonstrated that large oil palm monocultures (>100 ha) are detrimental to biodiversity, including mammals, little is known about the impact of small-scale oil palm plantations, especially in the Neotropics. Here we used a camera trapping survey to compare species richness, community structure, and relative abundances of mid to large-bodied terrestrial mammals in small-scale oil palm plantations (<100 ha) and secondary forest fragments within a highly modified landscape mosaic in the southeastern lowlands of Tabasco, Mexico. Contrary to our expectations, we found no differences in the overall mammal communities between the oil palm and forest fragments, including species richness or mean relative abundance. Individual species showed some apparent differences in their total detections between the two habitats, with 11 having greater detections in forest than oil palm, and only two with greater detections in oil palm. Further, oil palm sites were more similar to one another in terms of mammal community structure than the secondary forest fragments. We found that shorter distance to forest patches was related to higher mammal species richness in both forest fragments and oil palm plantations. Twelve terrestrial mammal species known to occur in forested areas in the state of Tabasco were never detected in either vegetation type in our surveys, highlighting the fact that the mammal community in this landscape had already been reduced to those species most resilient to human disturbance. Our findings suggest that small-scale oil palm plantations in this region are used at least to some degree by most mammals that are also found in the remaining secondary forest fragments in this landscape, but that access to nearby forest is important for these species. In order to recover more of the original mammal community of the region and prevent further reductions in biodiversity, conservation priorities should center around reducing hunting pressure, allowing forest regeneration and increasing connectivity between protected areas and along waterways.

Although renewable energy holds great promise in mitigating climate change, there are socioeconomic and ecological tradeoffs related to each form of renewable energy. Forest-related bioenergy is especially controversial, because tree plantations often replace land that could be used to grow food crops and can have negative impacts on biodiversity. In this study, we examined public perceptions and ecosystem service tradeoffs between the provisioning services associated with cover types associated with bioenergy crop (feedstock) production and forest habitat-related supporting services for birds, which themselves provide cultural and regulating services. We combined a social survey-based assessment of local values and perceptions with measures of bioenergy feedstock production impacts on bird habitat in four countries: Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and the USA. Respondents in all countries rated birds as important or very important (83–99% of respondents) and showed lower enthusiasm for, but still supported, the expansion of bioenergy feedstocks (48–60% of respondents). Bioenergy feedstock cover types in Brazil and Argentina had the greatest negative impact on birds but had a positive impact on birds in the USA. In Brazil and Mexico, public perceptions aligned fairly well with the realities of the impacts of potential bioenergy feedstocks on bird communities. However, in Argentina and the USA, perceptions of bioenergy impacts on birds did not match well with the data. Understanding people’s values and perceptions can help inform better policy and management decisions regarding land use changes.