1│INTRODUCTION

Mammals are an extraordinary group, showing an amazing diversity of species, forms, ecologies, and behaviors (Wilson and Reeder, 2005; IUCN, 2019). Class Mammalia is composed of 5487 species and more than 1150 species of mammals are found in Africa (Borges et al., 2014). East Africa is rich in mammalian fauna (Girma et al., 2012a).

Mammalian species are one of the greatest resources found on the Earth (Qufa and Bekele, 2019). Mammals act as umbrella species of terrestrial ecosystems because of their large area home range requirements and contribute to the conservation of other species (Bene et al., 2013; Bogonia et al., 2017). Large-sized mammals (weigh more than 7kg) and medium-sized mammals (weigh between 2 and 7kg), in particular, have important ecosystem functions (Geleta and Bekele, 2016). Mammals play key roles throughout many of the world’s ecosystems including grazing, predation and seed dispersal (Scholes et al., 2006). They also provide important human benefits such as food, recreation, and income (MEA, 2005).

Worldwide, medium and large-sized mammalian species face numerous threats (Kasso and Bekele, 2014; Wale et al., 2017). Habitat loss and degradation and harvesting (hunting/gathering for food, medicine, fuel and materials) are by far the main threats to mammals (Ripple et al., 2016). Among land species, habitat loss is prevalent across the tropics, driven particularly by deforestation in Central and South America, West, East and Central Africa, Madagascar, and in South and Southeast Asia (Tabor et al., 2018).

The rate of species discovery among mammals is high in regions of high levels of endemism and threat (Reeder et al., 2007). Nonetheless, our understanding of conservation implications of mammals is surprisingly patchy. There is, therefore, an urgent need to secure and maintain sites containing assemblages of mammals (Negeri et al., 2015). For any comprehensible conservation and effective management action to be adopted for mammals, accurate knowledge of population composition, diversity, distribution, management and their threats have to be known and constantly monitored (Kasso and Bekele, 2014) in order to avoid extermination and to secure the richness of mammalian biodiversity (Laurindo et al., 2019).

Ethiopia is one of the world’s rich biodiversity countries and it deserves attention regionally and globally (Yalden and Largen, 1992). Ethiopia’s high faunal biodiversity reflects the existence of a large number of species of mammals and other higher vertebrates.  Ethiopia is among the world leaders in terms of richness and endemism of mammalian species (Lavrenchenko and Bekele, 2017; Tefera, 2011). More than 60% of the mammal species in Ethiopia are medium and large-sized (Negeri et al., 2015). Topographic diversity and climate are the most significant predictors of mammalian species diversity in Ethiopia (Tefera, 2011).

Among identified 320 mammalian species of Ethiopia, 36 are endemic to the country (Gonfa et al., 2015). However, the wildlife population in Ethiopia has diminished over the past century both in amount and distribution through the loss of habitat, hunting, and land clearance for farming; land degradation due to overgrazing (Wale et al., 2017).

In Ethiopia, most of the studies on mammals were restricted to protected areas (Wale et al., 2017; Fetene et al., 2019; Takele and Solomon, 2011; Chane and Yirga, 2014) but the diversity and conservation status of mammalian species outside protected areas such as communal forest areas are poorly known. However, the study of mammals in communal areas is equally important (Tsegaye et al., 2009) even more because of the huge anthropogenic pressures (Legese et al., 2019; Kasso and Bekele, 2017; Girma et al., 2012b).

In Ethiopia, limited community-managed areas were surveyed for the diversity of mammals (Yalden and Largen, 1992). There are some documented information on mammals of community-managed areas in the northern, southwestern, southeastern and central parts of Ethiopia (Lavrenchenko and Bekele, 2017; Legesse et al., 2019; Qufa and Bekele, 2019) and a few in Southern Ethiopia (Girma et al., 2012b).  There are several intact forests in the Southern parts of Ethiopia. However, these fauna are still not well documented.

FCF is one of these forests located in the Gamo zone, Southern region of Ethiopia. This forest seems a place where green economy strategy has come to be implemented. This ecosystem is hypothesized to contain some medium and large-sized mammal species in its forest, but the composition of mammalian species and their abundance, diversity, structure and threats in the area are not yet researched. Therefore, the present study was the first of its kind in the area and the main objective of the present study was to determine the species composition, diversity and relative abundance of medium and large-sized mammals and their threats from Faragosa Communal Forest, Southern Ethiopia.