Large terrestrial carnivores are have undergone some of the largest population and range reductions of any species which is of concern as they have disproportionately large effects on ecosystem dynamics and function. The jaguar is the apex predator throughout the majority of the Neotropics, however, its distribution has been reduced by >50% and throughout the majority of its distribution it survives in increasingly isolated populations. Consequently, the range-wide management of the jaguar (Panthera onca) depends upon maintaining core populations connected through multi-national, transboundary cooperation, which is dependent upon understanding the movement ecology and space use of jaguars throughout their range. Using data from 116 jaguars from 13 ecoregions and seven countries, we examined the landscape-level environmental and anthropogenic factors related to jaguar home range size and movement parameters. Range-wide and at the ecoregional scale home range size decreased with increasing net productivity and increased with increasing road density. Also, range-wide, home range size decreased with increasing forest cover and decreasing human population density. Movement within home ranges was best explained by a different set of environmental covariates. Range-wide predictions of home range size were consistent with expectations based upon available density estimates. Using large-scale collaboration and open source data we overcame typical limitations of small sample sizes and limited geographic distribution of large carnivore data to demonstrate the jaguar as a model organism and in doing so provide a mechanism to evaluate range-wide habitat quality for jaguars and an inferential modeling framework adaptable to the conservation of other large terrestrial carnivores.
Keywords: jaguar, Panthera onca, home range, AKDE, Neotropics, carnivore, Felidae, movement ecology
Thompson, Jeffrey J. and Morato, Ronaldo and Niebuhr, Bernardo and Bejarano Alegre, Vanesa and Oshima, Julia and de Barros, Alan and Paviolo, Agustin and de la Torre, J. Antonio and Lima, Fernando and McBride, Roy and Paula, Rogerio C. and Cullen, Jr., Laury and Silveira, Leandro and Kantek, Daniel and Ramalho, Emiliano and Maranhão, Louise and Haberfeld, Mario and Sana, Denis and Medellin, Rodrigo and Carrillo, Eduardo and Mantalvo, Victor and Monroy-Vilchis, Octavio and Cruz, Paula and Jacomo, Anah and Alves, Giselle and Cassaigne, Ivonne and Thompson, Ron and Saenz-Bolanos, Carolina and Cruz, Juan Carlos and Alfaro, Luis D. and Hagnauer, Isabel and da Silva, Marina and Vogliotti, Alexandre and Moraes, Marcela F. D. and Miyazaki, Selma and Araujo, Gediendson and Cruz da Silva, Leanes and Leuzinger, Lucas and Carvalho, Marina M. and Rampim, Lilian and Sartorello, Leonardo and Quigley, Howard and Tortato, Fernando and Hoogesteijn, Rafael and Crawshaw, Peter and Devlin, Allison and May-Junior, Joares and Powell, George V. N. and Tobler, Mathias and Carrillo-Percastegui, Samia and Payan, Esteban and Azevedo, Fernando and Concone, Henrique and Quiroga, Veronica and Costa, Sebasian and Arrabal, Juan and Vanderhoeven, Ezequiel and Di Blanco, Yamil and Lopes, Alexandre M. C. and Ribeiro, Milton, Range-Wide Factors Shaping Space Use and Movements by the Neotropic's Flagship Predator: The Jaguar. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3722274 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3722274
This version of the paper has not been formally peer reviewed.
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